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Why Head Start Is Critical for the Wellbeing of Women and Girls
Authors
Why Head Start Is Critical for the Wellbeing of Women and Girls
Head Start and Early Head Start are essential programs for pregnant women, children, and families and are critical for advancing gender justice and women’s economic security in the United States. Early Head Start supports pregnant women and children birth to three years old, Head Start serves children ages three to five, and both programs provide comprehensive services for families including health, dental, mental health, and nutrition. The programs’ comprehensive approach has demonstrated long-term impact for girls and women, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.1 Half of participating children are girls and over eighty percent of participating family members are mothers,2 and the programs are largely run by a majority-female educator workforce.3 As such, women and girls benefit significantly from Head Start and Early Head Start.
Since its founding as part of the War on Poverty, Head Start4 has worked to mitigate economic inequality through early learning opportunities and wrap-around support to families with low incomes. Head Start has provided particular gains for girls, pregnant women, and mothers over the past sixty years. The following fact sheet details how Head Start’s educational programming and holistic services improve participant outcomes and support economic stability with multi-generational impact. In the face of compounding threats to Head Start from extremists and the Trump administration who have an explicit goal of eliminating the program,5 it is imperative to defend Head Start as the critical anti-poverty program that advances gender justice program that it is.
Head Start improves education, health, and socioeconomic outcomes for girls and women
Head Start programs have served over 40 million children and families since 1965, with the explicit goal of promoting school readiness for children from families with very low-incomes.6 Through statute, rules, and regulations, the Head Start program ensures that as many children as possible have access to high-quality early learning and supportive resources. The academic, social, and personal development that comes from years of school and holistic support that Head Start offers supports participating girls in reaching their full potential. Participating in Head Start has been shown to reduce chronic absenteeism; increase the likelihood of completing high school; increase the likelihood of enrolling in college; and help girls living in poverty score higher in reading and math.7
Moreover, as Head Start girls grow up, they see long-term benefits that redound across generations. Girls who participated in Head Start are more self-sufficient: along with educational gains, participation in Head Start reduces adult poverty in women by 32 percent,8 and girls with greater access to education and resources have lower rates of teen pregnancy and lower rates of involvement with the criminal legal system.9 Additionally, for Head Start girls who go on to become mothers, the benefits of participating in the program roll over to the next generation: mothers’ increased educational attainment and resources led to improved health and development for their children.10
Early Head Start provides critical services that support maternal health and lead to positive impacts for mothers and their children
Early Head Start, established in 1994 as part of the reauthorization of Head Start, serves pregnant women and children under age three.11 Today, Early Head Start has over 600 programs that serve 45,000 families with low-incomes.12 Like Head Start, Early Head Start deploys a multi-generation approach, focused on high-quality early childhood education and family services. Early Head Start provides maternal health support, including connecting pregnant women with prenatal health care and comprehensive services like nutritional and food assistance, dental care, mental health care, and emergency shelter or transitional housing in cases of domestic violence. These interventions are particularly associated with improved outcomes for perinatal women and pregnancy outcomes, including reduced risk of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, low birth weight, birth defects, perinatal depression, and infant mortality, among others.13
Notably, if an expectant mother enrolls in the program without an accessible source of health care, Early Head Start finds her one. This connection helps ensure access to critical pre- and post-natal care for the mother and her baby. This is especially key in a country with the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries in the world14 and where the Black maternal rate is more than twice that rate at 55.3 deaths per 100,000. Maternal health care is not only critical for mother and child, it also contributes to financial stability for expectant families and the communities they live in. Mothers are the sole or co-breadwinner in two-thirds of American households, a number that has more than doubled over the last 50 years.15 Investing in maternal health also contributes to broader financial benefits and stability for hospitals, counties and states – especially in rural or underserved municipal regions.16 Maternal morbidity, or health complications from or aggravated by pregnancy, childbirth, or the postpartum period17 is expensive;- projections put the cost of maternal morbidity in 2019 at $32.3 billion.18 Eliminating preventable deaths and severe illnesses associated with childbirth through the type of prenatal care Early Head Start facilitates helps address both the health harms and financial consequences of maternal morbidity for families and communities.
Early Head Start programs also ensure mothers receive a home-visit in the first two weeks after birth as well as postpartum education and services on recovery, mental health, infant care, feeding, and father engagement.19 Once a mother is enrolled in Early Head Start, her child is automatically enrolled as well, ensuring access to all the benefits for children the program provides.20 Family participation in Early Head Start is associated with a greater percentage of parents being in school or job training programs, parents reporting lower parenting distress, more supportive home environments for language and literacy, and improved academic and social-emotional outcomes for children.21
Head Start helps women balance work and family while improving outcomes for mothers and children
Head Start supports mothers’ well-being and helps low-income working mothers break the cycle of poverty in a range of ways. Not only does it provide child care that enables mothers to work,22 it offers other supports such as education, connections to job training, and social services that help mothers on a pathway to the workforce.
Increased capacity to work and earn
Head Start supports many low-income mothers—especially single mothers and mothers of color—achieve long-term economic independence because the child care Head Start provides allows mothers to maintain full-time employment, which, in turn, promotes increased earnings, savings and financial stability.23 Single mothers, who are both the primary earner and primary caregiver in their household, benefit especially from access to affordable and reliable child care like Head Start: single mothers’ employment rates drop from 84 percent to 67 percent when they don‘t have access to a child care program.24 For mothers with two children, access to child care is associated with at least $94,000 increase in lifetime earnings and $20,000 in savings.25 For Black mothers in chronic poverty, access to child care is associated with at least $108,000 increase in income.26
Increased access to higher education
Head Start also particularly supports low-income mothers, single mothers, and mothers of color in their pursuit of higher education.27 Head Start both provides a reliable place for their children to learn while their mothers are in school and provides unique educational opportunities through partnerships with colleges.28 Access to affordable early childhood education increases single mothers’ college graduation rates by 21 percent, which, in turn, has direct impact on her lifetime earnings.29 And a college degree not only increases parents’ economic stability and mobility, it also improves their health and well-being and supports educational outcomes of their children.30
Increased parenting skill and involvement in children’s development
Head Start’s family-centered approach31 includes specific support for child development and parent self-sufficiency.32 Programs are required to implement strategies that promote shared responsibility with parents for children‘s development and learning. Programs build on parent’s knowledge and offer opportunities to practice parenting skills to promote children’s learning and development.33 For example, programs offer parent-child activities to support language, dual language,34 literacy, and bi-literacy development; programs provide parents with information about the importance of their child’s regular attendance to promote consistent attendance. Head Start also specifically encourages parents to participate in their children’s education, such as by volunteering in classrooms, participating in Head Start governance and leadership opportunities, and seeking out Head Start staff positions.35
Low wages and benefits disproportionately impact the majority-women Head Start workforce and contribute to child care shortages
Disproportionate impact of low wages and benefits
Even as Head Start provides invaluable support for women and their children, women are also disproportionately harmed by the low compensation and benefits the program’s majority-female workforce receives.36 Early childhood education (ECE) workers consistently face low wages compared to the rest of the workforce,37 and women – especially women of color – make up a disproportionate share of the ECE workforce.38
Indeed, women’s overrepresentation in low-paid jobs such as child care jobs is a key driver of the gender wage gap39 – a gap that is wider for women of color, mothers, and especially women of color who are mothers.40 Low wages are particularly challenging for mothers primarily supporting their own children at home, and women of color are more likely to be the primary breadwinners of their family than their white counterparts.41 Early educators face disproportionate poverty rates because of this insufficient compensation,42 leading almost half to rely on public programs like Medicaid and SNAP to make ends meet.43 (Note, as well, that these same women are therefore more likely to experience the impact of rampant and radical cuts to those programs.44)
Disproportionate impact of insufficient child care supply
Insufficient compensation for the ECE workforce is also a primary driver of the child care workforce shortages across the country45 which then also disproportionately impact women as the parent most likely to have to compensate for lack of child care.46 Insufficient compensation leads to workforce shortages in two interrelated ways: poverty-level wages drive high burnout and turnover rates of early educators,47 and high burnout and turnover rates drive staffing shortages that impede programs from enrolling to capacity.48 Survey research suggests that improved compensation contributes to reduced staff turnover, and with it, the child care shortages parents face around the country.49 While Head Start has made progress to improve educator and staff pay, increase benefits, and improve workplace conditions, the program faces a workforce shortage just like other ECE programs.50
The workforce problems Head Start faces are further imperiled by proposed changes by the Trump administration. In 2026 alone, two proposed rules aim to remove advances in wages and benefits for Head Start educators and remove program standards that maintain a safe and supportive learning environment.51 Without these guardrails, Head Start educators are likely to see compounding negative changes that may lead to burnout or leaving the classroom entirely.52
At the same time, and as discussed above, access to child care is critical for families – and especially mothers – to thrive. Mothers are more able to find work and stay employed when there is access to stable and affordable early care and education for their children.53 Without such support systems, mothers are often forced to cut their work hours or leave the workforce entirely.54
Families in the United States deserve a robust, well-funded, and comprehensively supported Head Start program so that more young girls can advance academically, so that mothers have the support they need to achieve their goals of work, education, and engagement in their children’s development and learning, and so that early educators can have a standard-bearer program with strong pay and benefits. Gender justice advocates must continue to sound the alarm at each of the Trump administration’s attempts to weaken this critical program.
Endnotes
1 Ashley Kopack Klein et al., Descriptive Data on Head Start Children and Families from FACES 2019: Fall 2019 Data Tables and Study Design, OPRE Report 2021-77 (Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2021), 31, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED613786.pdf.
2 While the Office of Head Start (OHS)’s fact sheets tracking enrollment demographics do not explicitly separate enrollment by gender, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is a longitudinal study that provides insight into demographic characteristics including gender. [Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation]. Child and Family Experiences in Head Start FACES Programs: Spring 2022 Data Tables. Washington, DC: Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2024. https://acf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/FACES2122StudySpring22Tables.pdf.
3 [Office of Head Start], “Head Start Program Facts: Fiscal Year 2022,” HeadStart.gov, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, last modified February 27, 2025, https://headstart.gov/program-data/article/head-start-pro-gram-facts-fiscal-year-2022.
4 The Head Start program was founded in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, and began as an eight-
week summer program. In 1966, Head Start was authorized by Congress as a year-round program. Migrant and Seasonal Head Start, creat-ed to respond to the needs of migrant farm worker families, was launched in 1969 under the Nixon Administration. Early Head Start began in 1995 under the Clinton Administration and serves pregnant women and children from birth to age 3. Office of Head Start, “Head Start History,” HeadStart.gov, last modified August 31, 2026, https://www.headstart.gov/about-us/article/head-start-history.
5 National Women’s Law Center, “Attacks on Head Start Are Part of a Sustained Strategy to Undermine Progress for Families with
Low Incomes: A Timeline of the Trump Administration’s Efforts to Eliminate the Program,” National Women’s Law Center, September 30, 2026, https://nwlc.org/resource/attacks-on-head-start-are-part-of-a-sustained-strategy-to-undermine-progress-for-families-with-low-incomes-a-timeline-of-the-trump-administrations-efforts-to-eliminate-the-program/.
6 [Office of Head Start], “Head Start History,” HeadStart.gov, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, last modified January 31, 2025, https://headstart.gov/about-us/article/head-start-history; 42 U.S.C. § 9831
7 Myungkook Joo, “Long-Term Effects of Head Start on Academic and School Outcomes of Children in Persistent Poverty: Girls vs.
Boys,” Children and Youth Services Review 32, no. 6 (2010): 808.
8 Martha J. Bailey, Shuqiao Sun, and Brenden Timpe, “Prep School for Poor Kids: The Long-Run Impacts of Head Start on Human
Capital and Economic Self-Sufficiency,” American Economic Review 111, no. 12 (December 2021): 3992.
9 Andrew Barr and Chloe R. Gibbs, “Breaking the Cycle? Intergenerational Effects of an Antipoverty Program in Early Childhood,” Journal of Political Economy 130, no. 12 (December 2022): 3279
10 Barr and Gibbs, “Breaking the Cycle?,” 3279.
11 [Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation], Building Their Futures: How Early Head Start Programs Are Enhancing the Lives of Infants and Toddlers in Low-Income Families (Washington, DC: Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001), https://acf.gov/opre/report/building-their-futures-how-early-head-start-programs-are-enhancing-lives-infants-and-0.
12 [OPRE], Building Their Futures.
13 Amy L. Yaroch et al., “Implementation and Impact of Perinatal Food Is Medicine Programs: A Qualitative Research Study,”
Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics 124, no. 8 (August 2024): 1070, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S2212267224000820#abs0010; Rana Chehab et al., “Food Insecurity in Pregnancy, Receipt of Food Assistance, and Risk of Perinatal Complications,” JAMA Network Open 8, no. 1 (January 2025): e2453678, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarti-
cle/2829483; Sital Navneet et al., “Oral Care in Pregnancy,” Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care 8, no. 10 (October 2019): 3110, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6883753/; Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors and National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center, Policy Statement: Perinatal Oral Health (Reno, NV: ASTDD; Washington, DC: NMCOHRC, 2020; rev. June 2025), 1, https://www.astdd.org/docs/perinatal-oral-health-policy-statement.pdf; Louise M. Howard and Hind Khalifeh, “Perinatal Mental Health: A Review of Progress and Challenges,” World Psychiatry 19, no. 3 (October 2020): 313–327, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/
PMC7491613/#wps20769-sec-0007; Jason Reece, “More Than Shelter: Housing for Urban Maternal and Infant Health,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 7 (March 2021): 3331, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8037986/#B74-
ijerph-18-03331.
14 with 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births. “Metrocentered: Tackling the Black Maternal Health Crisis,” American University Magazine, August 2022, https://www.american.edu/magazine/article/better-outcomes-for-black-birthing-people.cfm.
15 Sarah Jane Glynn, “Breadwinning Mothers Continue To Be the U.S. Norm,” Center for American Progress, May 10, 2019, https://
www.americanprogress.org/article/breadwinning-mothers-continue-u-s-norm/.
16 Anna Claire Vollers, “‘Expensive and Complicated’: Most Rural Hospitals No Longer Deliver Babies,” Stateline, June 11, 2025,
https://stateline.org/2025/06/11/expensive-and-complicated-most-rural-hospitals-no-longer-deliver-babies/.
17 Commonwealth Fund, “NEW REPORT: Pregnancy and Delivery Complications Cost the United States Billions in Health Care
Expenses, Lost Productivity, and Social Support Services,” press release, November 12, 2021, https://www.commonwealthfund.org/press-re-
lease/2021/new-report-pregnancy-and-delivery-complications-cost-united-states-billions.
18 Commonwealth Fund, “NEW REPORT: Pregnancy and Delivery Complications Cost the United States Billions in Health Care
Expenses, Lost Productivity, and Social Support Services,” press release, November 12, 2021, https://www.commonwealthfund.org/press-re-
lease/2021/new-report-pregnancy-and-delivery-complications-cost-united-states-billions.
19 [Office of Head Start], “Services to Pregnant Women and Expectant Families in Early Head Start,” HeadStart.gov, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, last modified April 25, 2025, https://headstart.gov/publication/
services-pregnant-women-expectant-families-early-head-start20 [Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation], Services and Outcomes for Early Head Start Families Enrolled During Pregnancy: Is There a Magic Window? (Washington, DC: Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2006),
2, https://acf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/pregnancy2.pdf
21 Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center, “Early Head Start,” Prenatal-to-3 State Policy Roadmap 2025: United States (Vanderbilt University Peabody College of Education & Human Development, 2025), https://pn3policy.org/pn-3-state-policy-roadmap-2025/us/early-head-start/; [Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation], Building Their Futures: How Early Head Start Programs Are Enhancing the Lives of Infants and Toddlers in Low-Income Families (Washington, DC: Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001), https://acf.gov/opre/report/building-their-futures-how-early-head-start-programs-are-enhancing-lives-infants-
and-0; [Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation], “Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (EHSRE), 1996–2010,” Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, last modified October 2024, https://acf.gov/opre/project/early-head-start-research-and-evaluation-project-ehsre-1996-2010.
22 Leila Schochet, “The Child Care Crisis Is Keeping Women Out of the Workforce,” Center for American Progress, March 28, 2019,
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/child-care-crisis-keeping-women-workforce/.
23 Jasmine Tucker, “Black Women Have Been Undervalued and Underpaid for Far Too Long” (Washington, DC: National Women’s Law Center, June 2024), fact sheet, 1–2, https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/BWEPD-2024.6.28v4.pdf.
24 Leila Schochet, “The Child Care Crisis Is Keeping Women Out of the Workforce,” Center for American Progress, March 28, 2019,
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/child-care-crisis-keeping-women-workforce/; Rasheed Malik, Katie Hamm, and Leila Schochet, “America’s Child Care Deserts in 2018,” Center for American Progress, December 6, 2018, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/americas-child-care-deserts-2018/. Notably, nationally representative studies (such as the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey / FACES) show that roughly 62 percent to 66 percent of participating children come from single-parent families . Arya Ansari and Elizabeth T. Gershoff, “Parent Involvement in
Head Start and Children’s Development: Indirect Effects Through Parenting,” Journal of Marriage and Family 78, no. 2 (April 2016): 562–579,
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jomf.12266
25 Robert Paul Hartley, Ajay Chaudry, and Melissa Boteach, A Lifetime’s Worth of Benefits: The Effects of Affordable, High-Quality Child Care on Family Income, the Gender Earnings Gap, and Women’s Retirement Security (Washington, DC: National Women’s Law Center; New York: Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, March 2021), 4, https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/A-Life-
times-Worth-of-Benefits-Compliant.pdf.
26 Hartley, Chaudry, and Boteach, A Lifetime’s Worth of Benefits, 4.
27 Tucker, “Black Women Have Been Undervalued,” 1–2.
28 Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Head Start-College Partnership to Promote Student Parent Family Success: A Roadmap to Guide Collaboration, IWPR #C500 (Washington, DC: Institute for Women’s Policy Research, June 2021), 2, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED614641.pdf.
29 Scherer, Zach, and Michael D. King. “Income Gap Between Householders With College Degrees and Those With High School
Degrees but No College Widened Over Last Two Decades.” America Counts: Stories, U.S. Census Bureau, September 9, 2025. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2025/09/education-and-income.html.
30 (Institute for Women’s Policy Research 2021, 2)
31 Head Start staff and families work together toward shared goals through a collaborative and culturally responsive approach to
family engagement that is built on mutual respect.
32 [Office of Head Start], “Early Head Start Programs.”
33 [Office of Head Start], “45 CFR § 1302.51.”
34 [Office of Head Start], “45 CFR § 1302.51 Parent Activities to Promote Child Learning and Development,” HeadStart.gov, Ad-
ministration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, accessed October 7, 2026, https://headstart.gov/policy/45-cfr-chap-xiii/1302-51-parent-activities-promote-child-learning-development.
35 35 45 C.F.R. §1302.50(b)(4); Lucie E. White, “Raced Histories, Mother Friendships, and the Power of Care: Conversations with
Women in Project Head Start,” Chicago-Kent Law Review 76, no. 3 (2001): 1572, discussing Head Start’s unique legal blueprint that emphasizes family well-being and parent development.
36 Morgan Healy, Rachel Fidel, and W. Steven Barnett, The Real Cost of Rolling Back Head Start Wage Requirements, Policy Brief
(New Brunswick, NJ: National Institute for Early Education Research, June 4, 2026), 1, https://nieer.org/sites/default/files/2026-06/the_real_
cost_of_rolling_back_head_start_wage_requirements_0.pdf.
37 Including comparably credentialed kindergarten public school teachers. Mattie Mackenzie-Liu et al., Head Start and Early Head
Start Workforce Salaries: A State-by-State Glance, research report (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, March 2024), https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2024-03/Head_Start_and_Early_Head_Start_Workforce_Salaries .pdf.
38 In 2021, women were 94 percent of child care workers and 97 percent of pre-kindergarten and kindergarten (pre-K/K) teach-
ers, compared to 47 percent of workers in all sectors. Brooke LePage, “The Child Care and Early Learning Workforce Is Underpaid and Women are Paying the Price” (Washington, DC: National Women’s Law Center, May 2023), fact sheet, 1, https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/child-care-workers-5.25.23v3.pdf.
39 Sarah Javaid, “A Window Into the Wage Gap” (Washington, DC: National Women’s Law Center, January 2026), fact sheet, [insert
page number if applicable], https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2026-Window-into-the-Wage-Gap-Factsheet.pdf.
40 MomsRising, “Tomorrow Is Moms’ Equal Pay Day. We Know What Policies Will Help Close the Wage Gap for Moms – We Need Our Leaders to Adopt Them,” Newsroom, August 5, 2026, https://www.momsrising.org/newsroom/tomorrow-is-moms-equal-pay-day-we-know-what-policies-will-help-close-the-wage-gap-for-moms-
41 Kennedy Andara, Sara Estep, and Isabela Salas-Betsch, “Breadwinning Women Are a Lifeline for Their Families and the Economy,” Center for American Progress, May 9, 2025, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/breadwinning-women-are-a-lifeline-for-their-families-and-the-economy/.
42 For example, ECE poverty rates are 5.7 times those of elementary and middle school teachers. Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, “Early Educator Pay & Economic Insecurity Across the States,” in Early Childhood Workforce Index 2024 (Berkeley: Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California, Berkeley, 2024), https://cscce.berkeley.edu/workforce-index-2024/the-ear-
ly-childhood-educator-workforce/early-educator-pay-economic-insecurity-across-the-states/.
43 Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, “Early Educator Pay & Economic Insecurity Across the States,” in Early Childhood Workforce Index 2024 (Berkeley: Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California, Berkeley, 2024), https://cscce.berkeley.edu/workforce-index-2024/the-early-childhood-educator-workforce/early-educator-pay-economic-insecurity-across-the-states/.
44 National Women’s Law Center, “The Trump Administration’s Ongoing Attacks on Child Care & Working Women,” March 30, 2026, https://nwlc.org/resource/the-trump-administrations-ongoing-attacks-on-child-care-working-women/.
45 Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, “Medicaid Is a Critical Support for the Early Childhood Education Workforce,” Center for Children & Families, Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, April 21, 2025, last modified July 22, 2026, https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2025/04/21/medicaid-is-a-critical-support-for-the-early-childhood-education-workforce/.
46 amy_matsui_written_testimony.pdf at 4.
47 Not least because they often force ECE workers to find second jobs to make ends meet. Center for the Study of Child Care Em-
ployment, “Early Educator Pay.”
48 Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, “Medicaid Is a Critical Support.”
49 Center for Law and Social Policy et al., joint organizational comment letter on Restoring Flexibility to Support Head Start Program Access proposed rule (Docket ID ACF-2026-0364), June 11, 2026, 1, https://www.clasp.org/wp content/uploads/2026/06/CLASP-CAP-NWLC-NAEYC-Head-Start-Sign-On.pdf.
50 C. V. Farewell et al., “Investigation of Key Domains Associated with Worker Well-Being and Burnout and Turnover in the Early Care and Education Workforce,” International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health 96, no. 8 (October 2023): 1083–1093; National Head Start Association, Confronting Head Start’s Workforce Crisis, policy brief (Alexandria, VA: National Head Start Association, May 2022),
https://nhsa.org/wpcontent/uploads/2022/05/2022.05-Workforce-Brief.pdf; Rebecca M. B. Wells, “Predicting Preschool Teacher Retention and Turnover in Newly Hired Head Start Teachers Across the First Half of the School Year,” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 30, no. 1 (1st Quarter 2015): 152.
51 Administration for Children and Families, “Restoring Flexibility to Support Head Start Program Access,” Public Inspection Document 2026-09383, Federal Register (Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration, filed May 4, 2026), https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/2026-09383/restoring-flexibility-to-support-head-start-program-access; Office of Head Start, Administration for Children and Families, “Reducing Federal Burden for Head Start Programs,” Federal Register 91, no. 151 (August
7, 2026): 51248, proposed rule; FR Doc. 2026-16134, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/07/2026-16134/reducing-federal-burden-for-head-start-programs.
52 “CLASP and NWLC Submit Public Comment Opposing Head Start Proposal to Rollback Performance Standards,” Center for Law
and Social Policy, October 7, 2026, https://www.clasp.org/publications/testimony/comments/clasp-submits-public-comment-on-reducing-federal-burden-for-head-start-programs/.
53 Karla Coleman-Castillo, “Head Start Survives Trump Elimination Threat But Remains at Risk Thanks to Project 2025,” National Women’s Law Center, June 11, 2025, https://nwlc.org/head-start-survives-trump-elimination-threat-but-remains-at-risk-thanks-to-project-2025/.
54 Javaid, “Window Into the Wage Gap.
