3 days Ago By MIKE SUNNUCKS APG Media
Jennie Mauer is concerned about a looming “chaotic disaster.” Mauer is executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association. Head Start is a federal program offering free preschools to close to 800,000 lower-income kids nationwide and dates to the 1960s.
Mauer and other early education advocates are worried about current Head Start funding and the program's future with President Donald Trump’s austerity efforts and a draft White House budget showing no funding for the $12.1 billion preschool effort. In some rural and poorer communities, Head Start can be one of the only childcare options for lower income and working class families.
“There are many places where Head Start fills a critical void,” said Mauer, whose group represents preschools across Wisconsin that receive funding under Head Start. Earlier this month, U.S.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, said the Trump administration has slowed $943 million in existing Head Start funding that goes directly from the federal government to local providers across the country. Murray said in a statement the “slow-walk’ of money prompted one Head Start provider serving 400 kids in eastern Washington state to temporarily close earlier this month.
“Before our very eyes, Donald Trump is defunding Head Start,” said U.S. Sen.
Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin. Teacher Grismairi Amparo works with a student at a Head Start program run by Easterseals South Florida on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Miami.
(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) She said the Trump administration has delayed as much as $35 million in approved Head Start disbursements in Wisconsin so far this year. Mauer said 40 Head Start providers in Wisconsin are budgeted $258 million annually to serve approximately 15,000 kids. She said current DOGE efforts — including a short-lived spending freeze right after Trump took office in January and downsizing at the U.
S. Department of Health & Human Services — have providers jumping through more hoops to get payrolls approved and the families they serve are concerned about current and future funding. “It’s chaotic,” she said.
Mauer and other Head Start backers say the program is the only thing keeping some areas of the country from becoming “child care deserts” with few (or sometimes no) affordable daycare options. Karen Filipovich, executive director of the Montana Head Start Association, said there is uncertainty about the War on Poverty-era program. “I think right now there is a lot of wait and see,” Filipovich said.
Teacher Sehila Jiminez works with children during a preschool class at the Life Learning Center - Head Start, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Head Start funding in Montana totals $62 million annually. Filipovich said there are 22 programs, including on Native American reservations, serving more than 3,900 kids.
She said many areas of Montana, which has a population of just over 1.1 million people, are already childcare deserts with few affordable options. The average cost of child care is $1,000 per month in Montana, Tennessee, Florida and other states and can run even more in other states, including Ohio ($1,400 per month), Maryland ($1,600 per month) and California ($1,800), according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Filipovich doesn’t think state governments have the financial bandwidth to take over funding. “We are already struggling with the capacity to take care of kids,” she said. Head Start advocates said the cuts or an elimination would have its economic toll, making it harder for working class parents and grandparents to afford child care and get jobs.
Filipovich said those families are also concerned about other Trump cuts and potential changes for Medicaid, Social Security and other safety net programs. Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) austerity programs and congressional Republican efforts have frequently mirrored Project 2025. The policy blueprint calls for Head Start to be eliminated, saying the program “is fraught with scandal and abuse” and citing a 2020 federal Inspector General’s report that said as many as ‘one in four’ Head Start providers had problems with child supervision and others were not promptly reporting abuse or mistreatment allegations.
“Between October 2015 and May 2020, 12 % of recipients received an adverse finding for child abuse,” the 2020 federal inquiry found. In March, the Trump administration announced it was looking to cut 20,000 jobs at HHS to bring the agency headcount down to 62,000 employees. The austerity efforts have resulted in the closure of six of HHS’s 10 regional offices, including in Chicago, New York and Seattle.
The agency – which has said its restructurings will improve efficiencies and use of tax dollars — has not yet responded to a request for comment on Head Start funding. Associate Educator Patty Kramer eats cereal with her students as they have breakfast by electric candlelight at the Meadow Lakes CCS Early Learning, a Head Start center, Tuesday, May 7, 2024, in Wasilla, Alaska. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson) Wanda Minick, executive director of the Florida Head Start Association, said the government-funded preschool program also offers hearing and vision screenings as well as meal and nutrition programs for low-income kids.
“At a time when we need solutions to workforce shortages, early education access, and economic disparities, cutting Head Start would be a step backward,” Minick said. Filipovich said Head Start staff are also worried about the future of the program and their jobs. Head Start preschool programs, which serve infants and toddlers up to age 5, employ more than 250,000 staff across the country, according to the National Head Start Association (NHSA).
That includes 1,300 workers in Montana and close to 11,600 in Florida. A Head Start Program in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V.
Solis) NHSA has called a federal defunding of Head Start “catastrophic” for working class and low-income families. Last year, the Biden administration issued a new rule raising Head Start teacher pay — which ranged on average between $35,000 and $40,000 nationally — by approximately $10,000. Republicans pushed back on the pay increases, with U.
S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-North Carolina, saying “the effort smells like an attempt to form Head Start educators into a unionized political block.
” The Trump administration — which has reversed a number of policies from the previous White House — has not yet taken any action on Biden’s Head Start pay rule..
