Congress Gives Its Support To Enhanced Teacher Credentials and Expanded Head Start
Programs
By: Tommy Elder, Jr.
The United States Congress passed a bill that will increase the qualifications for teachers in all federally supported Head Start
Preschool Programs. Maria Glod of the Washington Post reports that this project for low income preschool pupil will abandon its philosophy of testing four year olds. The U.S. Senate consented to this idea in a bill passed by a vote of 95 to 0. Later, the United States House of Representatives agreed to the measure with a 381 to 36 margin. President Bush, according to observers, will sign the bill into law.
Currently, approximately 909,000 disadvantaged students learn in this program. The directors of this scheme hope to ready these
children ``academically, emotionally, and socially,`` for study in school.
As an objective- Head Start aims to employ many more teachers by 2013 with at least an associate
degree in each Head Start
Program. Further, they intend to fill at least fifty percent of its teaching positions with instructors with at least a bachelor`s degree. It will ``expand eligibility to families just above the federal poverty level, authorizes a funding increase, and directs money to programs for younger children and migrant and Native American students.``
in addressing the passage of this bill- House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, (Republican of Ohio) stated that- `The reforms that are included in this bill I think are critically important so that Head Start can really be all that many of us want it to be. There are some tremendous Head Start Programs around the country. . . but there are also some programs that don`t fulfill the promise that we`re making to parents and their children.`
Please send payment to: Tommy Elder, Jr. Post Office Box 663, Atlanta, Georgia 30301-0663 (USA)
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