Trump Administration Unveils Major Head Start Overhaul

The Trump administration announced plans on Thursday to roll back regulations for Head Start, a popular federal program that provides free education, health and nutrition services to hundreds of thousands of low-income children.

Federal officials say the proposed rule from the Department of Health and Human Services would give the nation’s roughly 1,600 Head Start programs that receive federal funds more “flexibility” by scaling back a number of rules they must currently follow.

The program has traditionally received robust bipartisan support in Congress and across presidential administrations, but has been heavily criticized as ineffective by conservative and libertarian groups. Those criticisms have been rejected by Democrats, early childhood education advocates and even Trump administration officials such as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“These are the poorest kids in our country,” Kennedy told reporters. “Ninety percent of them are at or below the poverty line. The program works.”

Head Start programs currently serve roughly 700,000 infants, toddlers and pregnant women across the nation.

The programs are governed by a set of regulations known as the Head Start Program Performance Standards, which detail how classrooms and programs are run, how curriculum is implemented and staff qualifications. But the proposal would shift federal standards around group sizes, classroom ratios, background checks and transportation to align with state early childhood education standards where programs are located.

“The federal standards set one-size-fits-all federal requirements for child-to-staff ratios, group sizes, and other operating standards,” Alex Adams, assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families at HHS, told reporters. “This would allow local providers to make local decisions in compliance with their state laws.”

Federal officials say the proposed rule — dubbed “Reducing Federal Burden for Head Start Programs” — would increase the number of slots to as many as 236,000 more children and would save $2.2 billion.

Kennedy said that when there were “draconian cuts to many of our agency programs” during the first year of the Trump administration, he “preserved Head Start from any cuts at that point.”

Head Start faced many headwinds and uncertainty last year. Programs experienced delays in grant payments and renewals, providers were temporarily locked out of their payment system during a federal spending freeze early in the year and the longest government shutdown in history last fall saw some programs temporarily close their doors.

And when a draft plan of HHS’ fiscal 2026 budget request reportedly proposed the elimination of the program, Kennedy testified before congressional lawmakers that the administration would “preserve” the program. Congress approved roughly $12.4 billion for the 61-year-old program for the current fiscal year and the White House’s budget request calls for flat funding for fiscal 2027.

Adams said the proposal “preserves all statutory requirements” dictated by the Head Start Act, the federal law authorizing the program, which Congress last updated in 2007.

The Heritage Foundation has long called for the elimination of Head Start, but the conservative group published a report last month saying the program should be deregulated in many of the ways the proposed rule suggests while “officials work to end the program.”

When asked if Head Start funding or programming is going to be cut, Adam's said the president's budget requests level funding for Head Start.

Congressional Democrats are already panning the proposed rule amid reports that the administration planned to deregulate the program.

"After trying and failing to defund it altogether, Trump is putting the program to the torch by rolling back federal standards that ensure Head Start be high quality," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor earlier this week.

And Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee who has long been supportive of Head Start, said removing regulations could increase class sizes and lead to fewer services.

"[I]f this administration later points to struggling students as proof Head Start does not work, we should all understand what this is – a self-inflicted wound used to justify another round of cuts," DeLauro said in a statement Wednesday.

Adams stressed that the proposed rule would make it optional for Head Start programs to deviate from current requirements.

“The opportunity for these programs to make a different decision does not necessarily mean they must make a different decision,” he said.

Adams also said the proposed rule would cap administrative spending from 15 percent to 5 percent and set new nutrition and physical activity requirements, including aligning meals with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The proposed rule is expected to publish in the Federal Register on Friday and have a 60-day comment period, according to officials.