The Trump administration moved Thursday to start overhauling the Head Start program, which provides free early-childhood education and parent-support services to low-income children.
Health and Human Services officials say the proposed changes are meant to encourage more local decision-making, telling reporters on a call that “one-size-fits-all mandates cannot fully account for the realities facing” the 1,600 providers across the country.
The proposed rule would limit how much Head Start centers can spend on administrative overhead, cut federal regulations and shift control over standards like student-teacher ratios and background checks from the federal government to the states. Though the program falls under HHS, the cuts also reflect the White House’s recent moves to shrink education funding and regulations while ceding more autonomy to the states.