High quality child care starts with the parents. Interesting that the article says that higher income children have skills passed on automatically. More racism. Poor and black parents are presumed to be incompetent. Ugh.

What the heck are we paying for Head Start ??
Let´s face it, children are like wild wolf cubs in the inner cities. I bet at age 4 most aren´t even toilet trained and don´t know how to use a fork, have never been read to or tucked into bed.

A lovely gift for the NEA.

Since most towns and cities pay taxes to support their school systems I just don´t se this happening.

For now the economy is so dreadful I can´t imagine towns raising property taxes to please the teacher´s unions.

#2, that may be the point, millions of (new) SEIU workers in the day care centers to change diapers.

By the way, my dog still has his Mondale Button just below his tail.

The level of leadership we have in this country is on full display. Headstart has been around for at least 20 years and proven to be a consummate failure. Now Obie and Mondale wet themselves talking about the very same thing.

Isn´t this the woman who wrote about how Texas was destroying the country? Head Start has been documented by the government to fail in its purpose, so naturally liberals will want to increase its reach. I guess they´ve found their way to ensure that children remain ignorant.

You know, the more we cede our children to a government bureaucrat, the more we lose. Right now there are too many children being warehoused in government-run facilities while the parents scramble....for what? To pay taxes to a disfunctional government? And, if our public schools´ product is any example of what we can anticipate from even younger children being subjected to "education", God help us.

#6 “...The level of leadership we have in this country is on full display. Headstart has been around for at least 20 years and proven to be a consummate failure….”

Oh, much longer than that! I worked for Oakland Public Schools in 1965…Headstart was cranking up then. And..one focus of Headstart at that time (I witnessed it) was to teach the kids to sit around a table to eat their orange slices and dry cereal rather than grabbing their food and running to a corner of the room to eat it like animals.

Gail must have ignored the fed governments studies on the failure of head start. So, apparently did her readers who responded to the article, their letters are incredible. And they call conservatives wackjobs.

The only thing preschool and Headstart are good for are as babysitters. It would be cheaper to actually hire a bunch of babysitters, but then the leftists wouldn´t be able to indoctrinate our children to their BS day after day. They just want them to be indoctrinated earlier, so it can counter the common sense and values of the parents.

Why wait til they are 4? Why not claim them after they are weened so the all-knowing government can properly indoctrinate them? Besides, why are we even wasting time on this issue. With abortions without limits available on demand, there won´t be any 4 year olds in a couple of years. s/o

I can´t imagine sending off a 4-year-old child anywhere, let alone to a public school!

We didn´t start school until the First Grade and we all turned out rather successful.

I guess for families that just want to be rid of the kids as soon as possible, this will seem like a great idea.

Not satisfied with distorting, re-writing American history and spoon-feeding it in the schools, ...plus lefty/lib pap which is shredding the social fabric of America, NOW BIG Government seeks to remove the children from parental care as young as possible and instead program them according to their radical statist agenda?! -YIKES!!!

Big Government apparently simply doesn´t trust American parents to raise their own children anymore, as they have on-the-whole done exceedingly well throughout past USA history. -Remember when children actually had a long & carefree, ´´childhood,´´ in America with TIME to play & have innocent fun?!! ...We certainly do!

Not anymore now though because only 0bama´s Big Government knows how & what is best to, ´teach the children.´ ...Is that about it?

What is horribly wrong with this picture?

The author is naive, disingenuous, or both.

How about sorting out which "barriers" and which "underclass" are even American responsibilities?

No question we need to do more for our own underclass. However, transferring resources to an imported underclass of 15 million semi literate individuals won´t do a thing to lift American citizens out of poverty.