Susan Molinari: “I am pleased to consider and to have taken part in the development of legislation to authorize the Human Services Act.…”

“I am pleased to consider and to have taken part in the development of legislation to authorize the Human Services Act. As many of my colleagues know, and we have heard, Head Start is approaching its 30th anniversary. This program clearly has an impressive history, but is also has a whole new set of challenges for the future. One of those challenges is to address, in response to recent reports, the disparities in the quality of services provided by Head Start programs and to eliminate the fade-out effect in children once they leave Head Start. We have aggressively confronted these problems in this bill by including measures to assure greater and more consistent quality, by putting poor performance programs on notice that the status quo is over and enhancing services to help parents become full partners in the education of their children. By making a Head Start center's continued funding contingent upon quality service, this legislation will inject new levels of accountability and responsibility into this program. By providing parents with a greater voice and an enhanced role in these programs and by providing necessary family literary services and parenting skills training, this legislation truly empowers the most important people in a child's life, their parents.”