Head Start, the federal early childhood program launched more than six decades ago, is shedding children at an alarming rate. Funded enrollment has dropped from 964,430 in 2011 to 666,923 in 2025—a 29 percent decline since 2015 alone—even as federal spending has climbed. The program now serves far fewer children than its nearly one million advocates claim.
The culprit, according to Assistant Secretary Alex J. Adams, is a thicket of federal regulations that have driven up costs without delivering promised quality gains. Adams points to the 2016 Obama-era rewrite of the Head Start Program Performance Standards, which imposed substantial new costs and acknowledged that, absent additional appropriations, programs might reduce enrollment. The Biden administration doubled down in 2024 with wage, benefit, and operational requirements projected to cost billions—and which the administration itself estimated could eliminate more than 100,000 slots.
The tradeoff was explicit: serve fewer children at greater cost in the hope that more intensive federal requirements would improve quality for those who remained. But the evidence suggests that bet failed. From 2015 to 2024, inflation-adjusted spending per slot surged 49 percent in Head Start Preschool and 32 percent in Early Head Start. Over the same period, scores on CLASS—the only valid and reliable classroom quality measure identified by the federal government—largely plateaued. Costs rose, access fell, and measured quality did not improve as promised.
The damage extends beyond classroom seats. Head Start’s comprehensive model, which supports entire families, has also eroded. Between 2016 and 2025, the program served fewer children with disabilities, fewer pregnant women, and substantially fewer families received family services. The number of newly enrolled children receiving required screenings within 45 days fell sharply. These trends, Adams argues, demand scrutiny and a different approach.
Congress established important requirements in the Head Start Act, and Adams says his proposal preserves them. Programs must continue to provide comprehensive services, serve children with disabilities, protect civil rights, engage parents, safeguard children, and manage taxpayer dollars responsibly. The federal government, he insists, should enforce those obligations vigorously. But enforcing the law, he argues, is not the same as having Washington prescribe nearly every operational choice made by more than 1,600 local Head Start programs.
“Those local leaders should be treated as professionals, not merely as implementers of federal directives,” Adams said. His approach would focus federal oversight more directly on statutory responsibilities and results, while giving local programs greater flexibility over operational decisions. Flexibility is permission, not a mandate: a program that believes its current approach works can keep it, while another that needs a different staffing model, classroom structure, or service strategy to open a classroom, recruit teachers, or reach more families should have room to adapt.
The stakes are high. Every dollar spent complying with an unnecessary federal requirement that does not improve quality is a dollar that cannot pay a teacher, provide a health screening, support a family service worker, or open a place for another child. Adams’s regulatory analysis estimates that the proposed reforms could significantly reduce operating costs and preserve or expand access for many more children. Those projections are estimates, not guarantees; local programs will make their own decisions, and the proposal is open for public comment.
Good policy requires humility. When a policy produces results, preserve it. When the evidence shows costs rising, access shrinking, and outcomes not improving as promised, consider alternatives. Head Start is too important to let it wither under the weight of its own regulations.
