Improving Head Start Act Of 2007

Floor Speech

IMPROVING HEAD START ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - May 02, 2007)

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the Improving Head Start Act of 2007. Over and over again, rigorous evaluations have shown that Head Start and Early Head Start works. It improves the lives of our neediest children and families.

I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the bill at hand, as it makes several positive changes to the Head Start program. It authorizes $450 million new dollars to the program, which is enough to provide up to 10,000 new spots for children. It prioritizes program improvement by increasing funding for teacher and staff salaries and professional development. It suspends the National Reporting System, which is a flawed testing system that does not adequately assess this comprehensive system.

Science has shown that providing a quality early education experience leads to healthy brain development that prepares children for success in school, as well as later in life. Access to high quality early education, as well as to wrap around, comprehensive services, really sets the foundation for children and their parents.

I urge my colleagues to support this strong, bipartisan bill. It will directly improve the lives of many, many children and families.

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to ask for my colleagues' support for this amendment, to improve Early Head Start.

The amendment revises the training and technical assistance system by ensuring that these services are provided by entities with specific expertise in infant and toddler development. It also directs at least 50 percent of training and technical assistance funds directly to the grantees. These are the people on the ground working with children who are best able to prioritize their training needs for the purpose of program improvement.

In our hearing on the bill in the Committee on Education and Labor, we heard that Head Start providers are not getting the assistance they need under the current system. One program director said that it had been 10 months since she saw her technical assistance specialist.

The current system centralized control often results in the assistance specialist spending more time filling out forms for their supervisors than directly helping the program directors in the field. The bill we are debating today solves this problem for the Head Start program serving preschoolers by directing the responsibility for training and technical assistance responsibility into the State-based system that can better meet the needs of the local providers.

Early Head Start directors experience similar problems, and, therefore, should get a similar solution. This amendment provides that solution and, furthermore, requires that these State-based technical assistance providers include individuals with infant and toddler expertise available to work with Early Head Start providers.

Rigorous evaluations show that the Early Head Start program has made a positive difference in the lives of participating children and their families. This bill expands the Early Head Start program, which currently serves only 3 percent of eligible infants and toddlers. And as Early Head Start expands, we must ensure that individual programs have the knowledge and skills to provide positive outcomes for participants. This amendment will do that, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

The Acting CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono).

The question was taken; and the Acting Chairman announced that the ayes appeared to have it.

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