The federal Head Start program provides free and low-cost childcare for more than 12,000 kids in Wisconsin —including for many immigrant families.
But new changes proposed by the Trump administration could remove limits to class sizes, eliminate developmental health screenings and require all instruction be in English.
Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin said the proposed changes will gut the standards that keep children safe, and feed into the administration’s plan to weaken the program until it can be shut down.
But officials in the Department of Health and Human Services say the changes allow for more flexibility for states in running their Head Start programs.
What do advocates in Wisconsin think about the changes?
WUWM's education reporter Katherine Kokal spoke with Jennie Mauer, the executive director of Wisconsin’s Head Start Association.
Here's their conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Katherine Kokal: Critics have said that these changes are a backdoor way of dismantling Head Start. Do you agree with that?
Jennie Mauer: I would agree that this move by the administration is really an attempt to dismantle what we know has worked, and promotes quality, and promotes those long-term outcomes for kids and families — and really for our communities. There's a lot of rhetoric in this proposal about flexibility, about adding more children and giving more children access to Head Start. But I would really encourage everyone to look to what is in the standard and to what is in the budget. There's not any proposal to increase the funding for Head Start at this time.
You can say flexibility up and down until the cows come home, but the reality is that flexibility comes on the backs of staff and children. Programs will have to serve more kids. So I would really encourage us to think about that word flexibility as a Trojan horse. It's really what they really should have said is "we're requiring you to serve more kids." And I really feel like this proposal is misleading in its aims.
How could these changes impact immigrant families and families with mixed immigration statuses who rely heavily on Head Start for childcare?
Yeah, one of the things in this proposal is a requirement for all instruction to be in English. I really want folks to think about what it's like to get a classroom of 3-year-olds ready to go outside in the winter. If you have a classroom full of children that speak Spanish as their first language and you're trying to get their snow pants on and you're not able to speak to in Spanish, that just doesn't work. And not only is it not practical to think about getting those kids' snow pants on, it's also when we think about English language acquisition, there's really strong evidence that it's the combination of leveraging the child's home language that helps them to learn English as a second language.
So I would really encourage us to push past the rhetoric that surrounds English-only education as a requirement and to think about what the practical qualities are. Again, for a classroom of 3-year-olds, you need to be able to communicate with them. So it's a ridiculous requirement and it's not practical when you think of running a classroom with small children.
What can people in Wisconsin do to weigh in on this? What comes next?
So this is a proposed rule. And the clock is ticking on a 60-day comment period. Comments close on Oct. 6, 2026. And folks may think, "Oh, I don't work for Head Start. I can't comment." You know, the federal government is for all Americans. And I would encourage all Americans to comment.
If you are concerned that Head Start is to be dismantled through this proposal, if you're concerned about the quality of early care and education with Head Start, if you're concerned about how these kids are then going to show up in the K-12 system, less prepared and less supported, you can engage with this process, and comments don't have to be fancy. They can be as much as saying that low teacher ratios help keep kids safe.
Do you have a question about education or how schools work in our area? Submit it here to WUWM education reporter Katherine Kokal.
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