Susan Molinari: “I am glad to be here today to consider, and to have taken part in the development of legislation to authorize the Human…”

“I am glad to be here today to consider, and to have taken part in the development of legislation to authorize the Human Service Act--H.R. 4250--which includes Head Start, LIHEAP, the Community Services Block Grant and several other programs. As many of you know, Head Start is approaching its 30th anniversary. This program clearly has an impressive history, but it also has a 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, putting poor-performing programs on notice that the status-quo is over and enhancing services to better help parents become full partners in the education of their children. I am pleased to say that these are all ideas that were originally presented in Republican legislation, which I helped to write with Mr. Goodling and Senator Kassebaum. I am also encouraged to see a renewal for the LIHEAP Program in this legislation. The LIHEAP Program is important to the whole country, especially to the colder States. My State of New York is the largest recipient of LIHEAP funds and would be one of the hardest hit areas by the proposed budget cuts.”