Clinton Signs Expansion Bill for Head Start

WASHINGTON — With dozens of children looking on, President Clinton signed legislation Wednesday to open the doors of Head Start to thousands more preschoolers and some of the country’s most vulnerable infants and toddlers.

In a White House ceremony timed to mark Head Start’s 29th anniversary, Clinton said the law begins to move the popular preschool program into the next century with quality improvements, new services for infants and toddlers, and more full-day and year-round programs.

Clinton said the legislation also seeks to preserve the “richness and the vision and the hope and the self-esteem” that children gain from the program when they leave Head Start, so they can “hold it close and live by it and gain from it throughout their lives.”

The legislation is based on the recommendations of an advisory board, which “provides a road map for Head Start’s journey into the next century,” said Donna Shalala, the secretary of Health and Human Services. It allows Head Start to operate through 1998.

Head Start provides a wide range of services to poor preschool children, including child development, parent involvement, health and nutrition.

The Clinton Administration is pressing Congress to boost Head Start’s budget from $3.3 billion this year to $4 billion in fiscal 1995, which would allow its enrollment to grow from 750,000 children to as many as 840,000.

Also on Wednesday, the General Accounting Office released a report that underscored the challenges Head Start faces at a time when growing numbers of children are living in poverty, without health care and in single-parent families.

The report by the congressional watchdog agency said the number of children under age 5 who will have trouble in school rose significantly during the past decade, while programs to help them failed to expand nearly as quickly.

It said Head Start has too few qualified staff to meet the needs of children with complex personal and family problems and must cope with rising costs and limited community resources.