Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I do this only to point out that our great flaw in Head Start over a 20-year period, and at a cost of approximately $20 billion, has been the fact that we have done nothing until the last reauthorization to deal with the family literacy problem. The whole idea in Head Start, unfortunately, was to involve parents in everything other than learning about parenting, other than improving their literacy skills. The unfortunate part about this is that there is then no one at home to be the first and most important teacher that a child ever has. That is why, when they get to third grade, contrary to what those who support Head Start usually like to say--that it is the school district's fault--the reason these children have problems is that we did not design the program well and did not insist that family literacy was a part of that program. A second problem is that over the years since Head Start began, we have never recompeted a Head Start Program. I mean, even though the reports were such that we should have been doing something, we did not. We just allowed the same group to continue and continue and continue, and it became an employment program for them. It was their employment program, and they did not want us to mess with them.”