Susan, you are in hot persuit of the truth as usual! However, public school administrators and liberals are enscounced in an ideology-driven epistemological philosophy, the walls of which mere facts can rarely penetrate.
What chance have statistics against metaphysical certitudes?

Headstart is at least a sub-article of this liberal philosophical system. It is also almost a politial third rail which must not be touched on pain of political electrocution. Study after study shows Headstart is a waste of money, except as "free" baby-sitting? Well, the problem is that not enough money is spent on training and hiring teachers! The student-teacher ratio must be lowered, better equipment is needed, teacher's must have master's degrees, etc., etc.

Always, from most public school administrators and their liberal allies, lack of "resources" is the problem,or "societal dysfunctionalism", not their sacrosanct educational philosophy. Anybody who dares question the "spend more" answer is an apostate, uninformed, ignorant, incompetent, not an "expert", or a pinch-penny.

I have news for these elitists! Here, the people rule, and that includes our schools! Freedom of choice is the ultimate answer to our mainly lousy, judged by world standards, public educational system. We are moving, despite massive oppositon from teachers unions and educationists, toward freedom of choice in education.
 

The problem with Head Start is the poor quality of the teaching staff. The teachers are mainly women who are from the same desperately poor neighborhood in which the school is located. Because they have been raised in the same dysfunctional area as their students, these Head Start teachers tend to be aggressive, negative, harsh, contolling, and suspicious. (That's what life in the 'hood does to you; it gives you a tough hide.) Many of these teachers only have their high school diplomas and they're not very bright. Their command of the English language is poor and every sentence contains an "ain't" or a "don't do dat". Many of these aggressive Head Start teachers use a harsh form of discipline that is known as Power-Assertive Discipline which is completely inappropriate for young children. This big, fancy-sounding, complicated term can be translated into something much more simple; A preschool teacher who uses Power Assertive Discipline is another phrase for saying that she is "REALLY, Really MEAN!!!!"
 

Head Start likes to use the state employment agencies to hire untrained Teaching Assistants. If they keep the T/A on the payroll for one calender year, then the state will reimburse Head Start with 50% of their wages. Their are restrictions to this benefit: The applicant must be on welfare. The applicant must be a single head of household with at least one dependent living in the home. No wonder Head Start is staffed mainly with single welfare-moms with a bunch of troubled kids and a dead-beat dad who's nowhere to be found!! Head Start passes over qualified staff since these individuals usually don't qualify for the big kick backs that the state has been doling out. How many single welfare moms in the 'hood do you know that have a B.S. in Early Childhood Education plus job experience in quality preschool programs? Not many, I bet!!!!