Head start

One of the more admirable goals that women’s groups had in the early years was developing programs to help mothers with child care. Head Start was a part of President Johnsons Great Society and in 1965 it was funded with 96 million dollars and mostly volunteers. It was a six week summer program and over 500,000 children applied. The response was so great that the next year it was expanded to a 9 month half day program and the budget was increased to 199 million and enrollment grew to 700,000.
This program like most government programs continued to grow and last year the budget was 8.2 billion and enrollment was just over one million. Many of the volunteers have been replaced by teachers but volunteers remain an important part of the program.
Children from ages birth to five are entertained by teachers and volunteers and given a healthy meal. Some are offered transportation. This is basically part time government paid for baby sitting at the cost of $8,000 per child for nine months. The average day is 4.5 hours for 25 days per month at a cost of $36 per day per child and this is more than the cost of a private child care business which would charge $20 per day for half days.