Mark Souder: “I am very supportive of this bill, but I want to share some vague uncomfortability with what I think is potentially…”

“I am very supportive of this bill, but I want to share some vague uncomfortability with what I think is potentially happening here in Head Start, and I think it's very important to clarify for this administration and for future administrations what this bill is intended to do and not intended to do. From the time the Republicans took over in Congress, I remember then Subcommittee Chairman Frank Riggs had a number of hearings talking about the lack of an academic focus to Head Start. There was a big debate about what the original role was, but it was supposed to certainly prepare kids who didn't have the same opportunities for their ability to be prepared when they started school. But there's a reason that Head Start, while it was in the old Department of HEW, didn't move with the Department of Education and stayed with HHS. If it was intended to be merely another education program run by educational bureaucrats, run the same way that every other education program was run, it would be over in the Department of Education.”