Randall Cunningham: “a lot of us do not support rules that are not open, but I would like to speak on behalf of Head Start. As an original…”

“a lot of us do not support rules that are not open, but I would like to speak on behalf of Head Start. As an original cosponsor of the Head Start Quality Improvement Act, I am very happy to see that most of those recommendations went into the Head Start reauthorization within the Committee on Education and Labor. I am pleased to see an increase in the recognition of the crucial role that parents play in the education and development of their children, and most of us have seen that any school program that works enforces the involvement of parents. We would like to see stronger language to enforce that parents take part in this, but at least the bill is going in the right direction. Secondly, this bill requires programs to actively seek parental participation, and while I would like to see even stronger language regarding the parental involvement in Head Start programs, the language addressing family literacy and parental skills training takes the right direction. It is important to recognize and establish parents as their children's primary teachers. Raising the quality of all Head Start programs throughout the country has long been a concern, and I am pleased to see the strengthened program accountability, and that is a strange word around this body, but believe it or not, this Head Start program enforces accountability for providing high-quality services included in this reauthorization.”