Head Start Fraud: Yes and No

I can't say I don't believe it. That's the only way I can respond to this article in the Washington Post on Head Start enrollment fraud. I am a Head Start employee who fully supports the program but it is really easy to see how this sort of fraud might happen. Often the people who enroll Head Start families are from the community they serve. They want to help their neighbors get in on the good deal that Head Start can be for families.


I can see how something like this could happen,

One D.C. center disregarded $9,600 in reported income to enroll a fictitious family of three. An associate at the center told undercover investigators: "We don't need any extra; we need to keep you low."

The article doesn't say that there were eligible families on the wait list, it just says there could have been. There is an important dynamic not mentioned in the article. Head Start is expected to have 100% enrollment on the opening day of school. It is hard but it can be done. There is a lot of pressure to make sure enrollment is full. There seems to have been a strong enrollment push for since 2002 that directors could interpret in different ways.

Obviously this a failure but what kind?

If the eligible families are there but not enrolling then there is a different malfunction in the system. Then it becomes a recruiting issue, are finding the children, advertising on outlets the community is engaged with, are you getting the word out? If a center or program answers, "No" to any one of these questions then there is only one reason it could happen. Leadership.

If the program director is not actively discouraging these types of disingenuous enrollment practices through monitoring and oversight then there is a failure of leadership. If directors are not changing their recruitment strategies to suit their constituents lifestyles it is a failure of leadership.

It is not, however, a failure of the Head Start program, no matter how far opponents of Head Start try to carry this political football. There is a difference between a systemic failure and an individual failure. Could enrollment procedures be tighter, probably, but it is already a more stringent process than enrolling in public school. So lets place the blame but just make sure it falls on the responsible party's shoulders. This is obviously failure of leadership not the people on the ground serving children and families. Someone told that person enrolling that fictitious family, either explicitly or implicitly, make sure we have our enrollment numbers. If anything is a failure in this system, it is over reliance on numbers to determine success.

Image: http://www.baltimorehousing.org/ps_headstart.asp

Questioning our Questions

The question seems to be the building block for education in this accountability driven era. However, why and how questions are asked can differ from one social setting to another.

I just read an ethnographic study conducted from 1970 - 1975 by S.B. Heath. This study is a seminal work that was published in a book titled Ways with Words in 1983.

In this classic the researcher conducted her research in response to requests by African-American parents in her community and white teachers of the community school to help them find out why students where not succeeding academically and where turned off to school. The study talks about how the the changes resulting from the educational reforms of Brown v. Board and the E.S.E.A of 1965 (now known as NCLB) brought black students into schools with white teachers.

What struck me was that the research that was conducted then is still applicable today and it could still be affecting how well students from different backgrounds succeed in school.

The study examines reasons for questions in homes of working class Blacks, in the public school, and in the homes of the white teachers of the school.

The reasons for questions in the teachers homes and in the school were often questions the teacher already knew the answer to, sometimes questions the adult didn't know the answer to, or veiled "directives or condemnations" of children's behaviors. Often these white adults asked their children and their students to give information out of context. They might ask, "What color is that?" The questions the adults didn't know the answer to were questions mostly about a child's preference, "What do you want?" and the third type of question asked, "Why can't things be simpler than they are?" was clearly rhetorical and considered the "polite" way to chastise a child.

In contrast, in the students homes, they were not asked questions that took objects and events out of context. Instead of three types of questions there where five types of questions in children's homes.
1) Questions in children's homes might ask a child to relate an object or event to another that they and the questioner both understood. (What's that like?)
2) They could serve as a "story starter" (Did you see Maggie's dog yesterday?)
3) An accusatory question (What's that all over your face?) When asked a "condemnation" question students could either, bow their head and say nothing or tell a story or joke that would cause the questioner to "forget" why they asked the question.
4) A question of preference "What do you want?"
5) Or, a question that the questioner and the child both new the answer to. (What's your name?) In this last situation the student is expected to give the the questioner the nickname that the questioner calls him or her and it is meant to affirm their relationship.


Needless to say, I thought a lot about the questions I asked my preschoolers today. I tried to be more balanced about the types of questions I asked but, I know I am part of a system. I asked kids to read words, tell me numbers, and describe the relative weights of objects. I also tried to ask, "What did you have for dinner last night? What word does that sound like? and Where were you when the police called about your sister?

I have seen all of the behaviors described by Heath to greater or lesser degree in my classroom. The best part of the study was Heath's refusal in her description or her reporting to condemn the students or their parents way of using language. Her ideas about a "two-way path" for language understanding in schools and communities ties democratic ideals to academic research and education.


I have had a colleague tell me about her experience serving on a test review committee. When too many African-American boys got a question right on the test the question was deleted from the test. So my question is, are we asking the "right" questions?

Save Humpty Dumpty!

I am always super excited when coincidence and effective practice converge in my classroom. I found out about the Super Why podcast yesterday and then read Karissa's post on the Pre-K Now blog. If you are a Pre-K teacher and/or a Pre-K parent you might just know that problem solving in Nursery Rhymes and fairy tales is the premise of the awesome new PBS Kids show Super Why. You can even download free podcasts on itunes or another podcasting tool. Vanessa's post about problem solving and nursery rhymes reminded me of a lesson we did a couple years ago in my classroom, inspired by my daughter's preschool teacher who had students solve the problem of saving Humpty Dumpty from cracking. In my daughter's class they used a real egg to represent Humpty. I was a little less keen on the prospects of eggs splattered all over the art area, so we used a plastic egg filled with jelly beans. Students solved the problem using materials gathered in the classroom. The picture below shows on of the pillows from the House area. We were able to talk about how and why Humpty did or didn't crack. I know I will revisit this theme in the new year. Thanks for the inspiration Vanessa.

Day care is not preschool!

Day care does not equal preschool. There is a big difference, the profit model versus the services model. There are a great many quality day cares but, a day care is not a preschool for one major reason, accountability. As a Head Start teacher I am accountable to congress, as a day care provider I am accountable only to the parent.
The New York Times published an article on a study that links time spent by young children in day care to disruptive behavior in 6th grade. I can totally see the validity in my personal experience. However, I came across a blog that tried to use the report to argue against universal preschool. I couldn't believe it. I guess the part that really made me mad is that the blogger equated the two, preschool and day care. I worked in a day care for two weeks. I couldn't stand it, there was no organization, no curriculum, the ratio was 1 teacher to 12 kids which became 1 - 23. After the 24th kid, then they might pull someone in to help, if there was someone available. I challenge anyone to come to my class and tell me it is like a day care. There is too much learning going on.