I am pleased that one of my first acts as subcommittee chairman was to introduce this bipartisan bill to improve the lives of low-income children and their families.          

I want to thank Chairman Miller, ranking members McKeon and Castle, and all the members of the committee for their hard work on the bill. And, I would like to thank the staff, especially Ruth Friedman, Chairman Miller’s senior policy advisor, Molly Carter, also with the chairman, Stephanie Milburn with Ranking Member McKeon, Sarah Rittling with Mr. Castle, and Lloyd Horwich on my staff.

Head Start has served our most vulnerable children and families well for 42 years, and more recently, Early Head Start has done the same for infants and toddlers. These children and their families receive comprehensive services – educational, family support, health and nutritional – that promote the children’s cognitive and non-cognitive development to enable them to succeed in school and in life.

We know that Head Start works, and I believe that this bill will make it work even better. Among the key provisions of H.R. 1429, are that it:

• Increases Head Start’s authorization by $461 million, to enable Head Start to serve as many as 10,000 more children;
• Improves quality by setting aside 60% of new funds to activities including teacher salaries, professional development, and extended program hours;
• Suspends the flawed national reporting system;
• Calls for 50% of teachers nationwide to have a Bachelor’s Degree in early childhood education or a related field by 2014 and for new teachers – starting in 2 years – to have at least an Associate’s Degree or be enrolled in an Associate’s Program;
• Increases access to Early Head Start by doubling the set-aside over five years and allowing programs to convert preschool enrollment to enrollment of infants and toddlers;
• Creates a new system of re-competition for programs that are not providing high-quality services.
• Improves the training, technical assistance and monitoring systems to help programs identify strengths and weaknesses and improve accordingly.
• Strengthens the quality of Head Start Boards and maintains strong parent involvement through shared governance of Head Start Programs.

I  look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on the committee to see this bill become law.