Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007--Conference Report --

Floor Speech

IMPROVING HEAD START FOR SCHOOL READINESS ACT OF 2007--CONFERENCE REPORT -- (Senate - November 14, 2007)

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I strongly support H.R. 1429, the Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007. This important bipartisan legislation, which I helped craft as a member of the Senate Education Committee and as a conferee, reauthorizes the Head Start Act for the first time since 1998 and strengthens our commitment to ensuring that the nation's neediest children receive high-quality early education supports and services.

Since 1965, Head Start has provided comprehensive early childhood development, educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to low-income preschool children and their families, and this reauthorization builds on our long-standing investment in this essential initiative.

There are two provisions that I am particularly pleased are included in this legislation, and which are important to my State of Rhode Island. First, the Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act builds on provisions I first authored in 2003 to provide Head Start programs with additional flexibility to serve children up to 130 percent of poverty. Current law limits program eligibility to 100 percent of poverty or below. This increase in income eligibility will enhance the opportunity for struggling, low-income families to participate in Head Start while ensuring that programs prioritize serving families under the poverty guideline and enhance outreach to ensure those most in need are served first. Raising the income eligibility limit finally puts Head Start on the same level as other means-tested programs, which essentially all serve above the poverty level to provide for greater participation and help the working poor.

Second, this legislation for the first time establishes the Parent Policy Council as a decisionmaking authority within the governing structure of Head Start programs. Strong parent involvement in their children's early education and development has been a key tenet of the Head Start program since its inception in 1965, and is one of the primary reasons for the program's continuing success.

This reauthorization also includes a provision I authored to enhance coordination between Head Start programs and school and public libraries to excite children about the world of books, assist in literacy training for Head Start teachers, and support parents and other caregivers in literacy efforts.

Additionally, I am pleased that this conference report does not permit employment discrimination based on religion despite the administration's continuing advocacy for such a change. Faith-based organizations are an integral part of Head Start. However, there is no need to change a program that has encouraged their participation by allowing such discrimination.

I want to thank Chairmen Kennedy, Dodd, and Miller and Ranking Members Enzi, Alexander, and McKeon and their staffs, for their extraordinary work on this conference report. The Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act is significant legislation for the people of Rhode Island and the nation, and I am pleased to support it. This strong reauthorization in tandem with necessary funding increases will ensure that Head Start can continue its important and critical work to lessen the effects of poverty and ensure that children are successfully prepared for school and life.

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