Senator says rule to stem Head Start employee turnover could bar children from early education

Stakeholders are wary that a final rule to increase wages and benefits for Head Start workers could result in fewer low-income children being able to access the early education program. 

Officials from the Health and Human Services Department, which promulgated the rule on Wednesday, said that Head Start faces significant recruitment and retention problems, which harms participating children. 

They emphasized that some programs cannot accept children on waiting lists due to a lack of teachers who are interested in open positions. The officials also argued that minimal salary increases for Head Start’s 248,000 workforce significantly contributes to the program’s high staff turnover rate, which was 17 percent in 2023. 

“For decades, the Head Start program has been subsidized by low paid workers committed to the mission; now is the time to enact clear federal requirements for staff compensation,” HHS wrote in the rule. 

The compliance date for many of the rule’s requirements is Oct. 21, however, the wage standards won’t go into effect until Aug. 1, 2031. 

The National Head Start Association expressed appreciation that HHS addressed many of its concerns with the draft rule but predicted disaster without additional funding. 

“The organization remains concerned that, if Congress and future administrations do not agree to such increases, the impact of the final rule could prove devastating, by significantly reducing the number of children and families served by Head Start programs,” NHSA said in a statement. 

The top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee came out strongly against the rule. 

“The Biden-Harris administration is denying educational opportunities to low-income children by drastically increasing the cost of Head Start. Children should have access to more educational opportunities, not less,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., in a statement. 

Referencing the rule, Cassidy said it could reduce the number of funded Head Start slots from 750,000 to about 645,500. However that is only if Congress does not increase funding, and the rule notes the estimated number of children actually enrolled in Head Start for fiscal 2024 is 650,000. 

“Using the current funded enrollment as a starting point, this analysis shows that the expenditures associated with the final rule, when fully phased in after seven years, can be mostly paid for by aligning funded enrollment levels to the fiscal 2024 actual enrollment,” the HHS rule said.

In other words, HHS argues that the rule's costs could mostly be offset by eliminating slots for children in Head Start that are funded but vacant, alongside a possible reduction of 500 spots. 

Specifically, the rule requires Head Start programs, with respect to wages, to provide the following: 

• a salary scale or pay structure that promotes competitive wages for all staff positions.
• salaries for teachers that are at least comparable to public school preschool teachers. 
• pay that is sufficient to cover basic costs of living in the staff member’s area. 
• wages that are comparable across programs for staff serving in similar positions with similar qualifications and experience. 

It also requires programs to provide full-time staff with health care coverage, paid personal leave and short-term behavioral health services. 

There are different wage and benefit requirements for small Head Start agencies, and the rule gives the HHS secretary the authority to waive the wage mandates under certain conditions. 

HHS estimated that in 2031, if Head Start maintains funding for enrollment of 750,000 children, the final rule would require a $2.3 billion increase in expenditures. The program received $12.3 billion for fiscal 2024.