"This is the best time in my life—the first 80 years are definitely the hardest." - Carol Channing at 82

Unraked Leaves and Toaster Crumbs

The National Head Start Association (NHSA) recently held a press conference to denounce an alledged US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to discredit Head Start programs with "bogus" non compliance findings.  According to an NHSA press release...

"Hundreds of Head Start grantees are being unfairly tagged as out of compliance with federal standards under a wide range of subjective and even bizarre 'parking ticket' citations that include flashlights with dead batteries, toaster oven crumbs claimed to pose a fire hazard, unraked playground leaves described as a 'choking hazard' and even a toddler's lunch money trumped up into a fiscal management complaint... HHS review teams have been instructed to find problems in nearly every program they inspect, whether or not meaningful problems exist. Even though the non-compliance citations may seem minor, they can be turned by HHS into a 'deficiency' finding that may lead to the termination of a Head Start operation's federal grant."

According to NHSA President and CEO Sarah Greene: "We can not stand by idly and watch as people falsely claim that their agenda is accountability‚ when that is just a label that they have hijacked in order to disguise their true intent of dismantling Head Start as it exists today. It is now painfully clear from scores of Head Start grantees across the U.S. that federal reviewers are under instruction to play a 'gotcha!' game where they find problems even if they have to pull something out of thin air. This is a mockery of the real accountability that NHSA and its members are 100 percent behind."

To read the entire press release, go to:  
http://www.nhsa.org/press/index_news_032405.htm