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Head Start: Challenges in Monitoring Program Quality and Demonstrating Results

HEHS-98-186 Published: Jun 30, 1998. Publicly Released: Jun 30, 1998.
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Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ensures that Head Start programs are accountable for complying with laws and regulations and for achieving program purposes, focusing on: (1) the extent to which Head Start's mission, goal, and objectives provide an overall framework that emphasizes compliance with applicable laws and regulations and achievement of program results; (2) how well Head Start's processes ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations; and (3) how well Head Start's processes ensure the ability to determine whether program purposes have been achieved.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Health and Human Services To ensure that individual Head Start grantees are held accountable for achieving program purposes, HHS should develop and implement a plan for assessing individual grantees' performance based on their achieving the outcomes associated with HHS' performance objectives. Such a plan could include, for example, guidance and suggested methods for grantees to use in assessing the degree to which children show improvement in critical outcome areas such as cognitive skills, literacy, and gross motor skills.
Closed – Implemented
In August 2000, the Head Start Bureau (HSB) sent an information memo to program grantees requiring them to develop a system to analyze data on child outcomes that centers on patterns of progress for groups of children over time as they receive program services during the program year. Grantees must collect and analyze data on legislatively mandated indicators of progress in language, literacy, and numeracy skills for individual children, but are allowed to collect data on other child, family, and program outcomes as defined by the Head Start program.
Department of Health and Human Services To determine whether the Head Start program is making a difference in the lives of those it serves, HHS should assess the impact of regular Head Start programs by conducting a study or studies that will definitively compare the outcomes achieved by Head Start children and their families with those achieved by similar non-Head Start children and families.
Closed – Implemented
In the fall of 2000, HHS contracted with Westat, Inc., in colllaboration with several other research firms, to plan and perform a nationally representative, longitudinal impact evaluation of the Head Start Program. After a pilot study, conducted in the spring of 2001, data collection will begin in the fall of 2002, with a final report due in December 2006.

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Topics

AccountabilityAid for educationComparative analysisDisadvantaged personsEducation program evaluationPerformance measuresPreschool educationPreschoolersSurveysHead Start programs