Womenstake

After the Veto, How Many People Will Miss Out?

by Melanie Ross Levin, Outreach Manager
National Women's Law Center

Last week, the House fell two votes short of the number needed to override President Bush’s veto of the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill. The Labor-HHS-Education bill is one of our favorites –- covering major domestic funding on a range of vital services for women and families including Head Start, child care, family planning, low-income energy assistance, and community health services for the uninsured. Democrats responded with an offer to meet the President halfway, a painful compromise that would mean cuts in services since the funding wouldn’t keep up with inflation. Even so, the cuts weren’t deep enough for the House Republican leadership, which rejected the offer. When members of Congress return after their Thanksgiving break, they’ll have to decide how many children will lose out on Head Start, how many elders will miss meals on wheels, how many families will be shivering this winter.

Happy Thanksgiving to you too! Party poopers.

A Thanksgiving Miracle – Head Start is Finally Reauthorized!

Melanie Ross Levin, Outreach Manager
National Women's Law Center

Yesterday, just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday, Congress broke through the usual gridlock to deliver the Head Start reauthorization bill. 

The bill expands services for infants and toddlers through Early Head Start, recognizing the importance of reaching more children earlier in life. It also reflects the importance of improving teacher training and credentials and the need to coordinate and expand early childhood education systems within states.  Furthermore, the bill rejects the Administration’s proposal to turn Head Start over to state governments and halts a controversial annual assessment of four-year-olds participating in the program. 

For more details on the reauthorization bill, check out our latest online update. 

Although this bill is an important step forward for Head Start, like any good bill that envisions expanding services to help more children, it needs adequate funding to become a reality.  This year, Congress only provides a $154 million increase for Head Start in the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill.  Even this small increase may not be enacted, since the President on Tuesday vetoed the appropriations bill and has requested that Congress provide him with a bill that further cuts domestic human service programs. 

Let’s hope Congress continues on with its holiday spirit by refusing to bargain away Head Start funding. 

Breaking: President Vetoes Key Funding for Women’s Programs

by Robin Reed, Online Outreach Manager
National Women's Law Center

President Bush just vetoed an appropriations bill that included increased funding for Head Start, child care, after-school programs, the Title X family planning program, low-income energy assistance, and other vital services for women and families.

We’ll have more details later on what this veto could mean, but for now, here’s what the AP has to say.

Congress Does Right by Head Start Children

by Helen Blank

It didn’t get much attention in the media, but something remarkable happened in the Senate this week:  it quickly and unanimously passed a bill helping our poorest children and families.  The Senate bill reauthorizes and strengthens the Head Start program, and is similar to a bill passed by the House with overwhelming support earlier this year. Both bills are rooted in the reality of families’ lives as well as the research on effective strategies to improve the well-being of young children.  The bills make more children eligible for Head Start’s comprehensive supports by upping the program’s eligibility cut-off so that families won’t be penalized for going to work and increasing their very low incomes. The bills also recognize that waiting to act to help poor children until after they enter preschool could be too late.  They wisely open the door to serving more families with infants and toddlers through Early Head Start, which currently serves less than three percent of eligible children.  Children will have the advantage of learning from well-trained teachers with the bills’ increase in teacher requirements.  Finally, lawmakers listened to the advice of experts on the fallacy of testing young children and suspended the implementation of the National Reporting System, a much criticized test for all four-year-olds enrolled in Head Start.

The next step is a conference to work out the differences between the two bills and funding from Congress that will support the many constructive changes in the bills.

Veto-Man Threatens Gains for Women and Families

by Joan Entmacher

Congress now gets down to the business of passing bills to fund public services, after approving an overall budget last month. Yesterday, the bill covering labor, health and education programs was approved by a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee.  After years of freezes and cutbacks, there’s finally a change of direction. Head Start and child care get modest increases, but far less than is needed to address unmet needs. Education for the disadvantaged, Pell grants, health research, low-income home energy assistance, community services, and various other programs get a boost.

But specifics apparently don’t matter to the Bush Administration, which—before any bills were drafted—threatened to veto any spending bill that went beyond the amounts in his budget. Following President Bush’s lead, the Republican Study Committee (RSC), a group of ultra-conservatives in the House of Representatives, urged House Republicans to pledge to uphold such vetoes. The RSC claimed 128 House Republicans as signers, 18 short of the number needed to sustain a veto. But the President’s budget would mean fewer families could access the child care, education, health care, job training and other supports they need to be secure and get ahead—while lavish tax breaks for millionaires and special interests would be fully protected.  One can only hope, as these funding bills continue to move through Congress to the President’s desk, that he and his congressional supporters think about what additional funding could mean to families on a waiting list for child care assistance, low-income seniors who can’t pay their utility bills as temperatures soar, students struggling to pay for college, and millions of others.  A broad coalition of individuals and groups around the country are working hard to make sure they get it.

Everybody Loves a Head Start

by Helen Blank

We always knew (almost) everybody loves Head Start, and thanks to yesterday’s House vote, we can now more precisely quantify that as 88% of voting House members.

Last night, the House approved a bill (H.R. 1429) reauthorizing Head Start, the comprehensive early childhood program for poor children, by an overwhelming 365-48 vote.  The bill does a number of good things: halts the national test for all Head Start four-year-olds that was put into place under the Bush administration and that early education experts believe is inappropriate; increases funding targeted at improving quality; expands Early Head Start, which serves infant and toddlers—in recognition of research on the importance of children’s first years of life; and requires half of all Head Start teachers nationwide to have bachelor’s degrees by 2013.  Unfortunately, achieving many of the worthy goals laid out in the bill will likely require a great deal more money than authorized by the bill.