Head Start: Paving the Way for Continued Education

Head Start: Paving the Way for Continued Education
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

In a recent New York Times article, Jamie Merisotis and Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote about "College Kids, With Kids," describing how finding affordable, high-quality early care and education can be an insurmountable barrier for parents who are trying to achieve their higher education goals and provide for their families. In many communities, Head Start has long been part of the solution to this challenge. Family-focused, two-generation programs and partnerships exist in Head Start settings across the country, customized based on the needs of each community. In New York City, the Educational Alliance operates a comprehensive two-generation Head Start program for low-income families, focused on educational attainment and economic stability. Since 2011, The Educational Alliance's College Access and Success program, developed in partnership with the City University of New York, has provided hundreds of parents with the vital services they need to continue their education while supporting their children's learning and development. In 2015, NHSA highlighted the Educational Alliance and five other bright spots of two-generation programming in action in Head Start across the country with our Two Generations Together Project. Taken together, those six programs highlight the varied ways that Head Start programs have designed two-generation efforts to meet the needs of communities from the Lower East Side of New York to the Mississippi Delta.

Researchers from Northwestern University found that, nationally, Head Start parents of three-year-olds are 9% more likely than similar parents without access to Head Start to complete college by the time their children are six. These findings date from before the inception of College Access and Success and programs like it - Head Start's impacts are likely even more powerful today! The Head Start community is committed to continuous improvement, both for our children and our families. Programs like College Access and Success have the potential to serve as a national model for two-generation approaches to family success, amplifying the impact of Head Start programs for student parents nation-wide. Head Start programs continue looking for opportunities, including the current federal funding opportunity for Early Head Start Expansion and Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships, to help young children and their parents succeed in school and in life.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot