The tools for success

It’s easy to believe the toddlers in the Early Head Start nursery at Spokane’s West Central Community Center really are going places when teacher Julie Bostwick-Cosby leads them in a chorus: “Zoom, zoom, zoom! We’re going to the moon.”

These five cheerful tots and the baby cuddling nearby with child care aide Lana Nosova look as likely to zoom as anyone else at that age. Their day care is as well-appointed, as well-staffed as any suburban parent could expect.

Head Start is one of the nation’s oldest early-childhood programs. Since 1965, it has been helping to prepare low-income children under the age of 5 for school. Early Head Start was added in 1994 to serve the needs of children 2 and younger. The federal Office of Head Start, which oversees the two programs, has a budget of $6.9 billion in fiscal 2007.

Head Start and Early Head Start both maintain high standards. Class sizes in Early Head Start are limited to eight infants and toddlers, while Head Start classes for older preschoolers are limited to 17. Washington state standards for private day-care centers allow 12 infants and toddlers, or 20 older children.

Graduates of the program nationally include sports star Deion Sanders and California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez. Locally, Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich is a Head Start alumnus.

“We definitely consider him a successful graduate,” said Kris Miller, Spokane district director for Early Head Start, Head Start and the Washington state Early Childhood and Education Assistance Program, known as ECEAP.

Knezovich said he talked to his mother, Arthine Knezovich, after a nonprofit law enforcement organization called Fight Crime: Invest in Kids asked him to go to Washington, D.C., to lobby for Head Start funding.

“You do realize that you were in that program?” his mother asked.

Actually, Knezovich had no clear memory of being in the program as a child in Rock Springs, Wyo.

“All I knew is I was going to school,” Knezovich said. “I remember puzzles, learning how to tie shoes, colors. It was all part of the basic education process.”

He didn’t need any personal ties to the Head Start programs to support them.

“The more you put into individuals early in their lives, as far as education, it reduces dramatically their chances of ending up in trouble with the law,” the sheriff said. “There is a correlation between education and success in life.”

Velcro shoes have taken some of the urgency out of learning to tie a bow knot since Knezovich was a kid, but colors are still an important part of the Head Start curriculum.

“Get on your listening ears,” Bostwick-Cosby told her young students as she and associate teacher Hy Yoeun launched a color lesson disguised with games.

The object of Toddler Twister was to touch the right-colored spot. And a chorus of “Itsy Bitsy Spider” couldn’t get started until the kids figured out the colors of the fabric arachnids they were going to wave.

“Itsy Spider,” 2-year-old Shelby shouted. “Yea!”

Alexus, also 2, thought she was having fun when she practiced brushing her teeth with a dab of real toothpaste.

Almost everything in the room teaches something. The toys require imagination, not batteries.

“They’re not the typical ‘lights-and-sounds, I-do-everything-for-you’ type of toys,” family service coordinator Mariah Martindale said.

Return on investment

With $6.9 billion in federal spending on the Office of Head Start, a good deal of scrutiny attends its programs.

Although Head Start for older preschoolers is considered to deliver good value for the money spent, at least one study has questioned the return on investment for Early Head Start, the program serving infants and toddlers.

The Washington State Institute of Public Policy reviewed hundreds of child abuse studies in 2004 and concluded that, at $20,972 for each infant and toddler served, Early Head Start might not be the best way to achieve goals such as reducing child abuse, cutting crime and increasing earnings.

The watchdog agency estimated that programs such as Head Start returned $2.36 in benefits for every dollar invested, compared with a return of $1.23 to $1.80 for two other preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds: Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters and Parents as Teachers. Early Head Start, on the other hand, returned only 23 cents on the dollar.

Steve Aos, associate director of the state-established institute, said Early Head Start’s broad approach “doesn’t seem particularly promising” in comparison with more narrowly focused programs such as Denver-based Nurse-Family Partnership. Aos’ organization estimated a $2.88-return by Nurse-Family Partnership, which provides family counseling and in-home health consultations for low-income women and their babies.

Marna Miller, senior research associate for the Institute of Public Policy, said the organization’s analysis of Early Head Start costs is based on the total, multiyear expenditure on each child in the program in Washington, based on the annual cost Early Head Start reported in 2002.

She said a federally commissioned study found children spend 1 3/4 years in the program on average.

‘Positive parenting’ gains

Kris Miller, the Spokane Head Start director, believes the state Institute of Public Policy analysis was skewed because Early Head Start hadn’t been tracking some of the things the institute examined, such as criminal justice statistics.

Since the state report, an ongoing Head Start study has shown benefits in a number of areas, Miller said.

For example, she said, Early Head Start children have shown “significant gains” in language development and Early Head Start parents are less likely to engage in the sort of “negative parenting” that leads to child abuse.

Miller said low-income parents, many still trying to complete their own educations, are taught in Early Head Start that a 2-year-old can’t be expected to sit quietly through a two-hour community college class. And that harsh physical and verbal responses to children’s misbehavior are likely to backfire.

Aos said even-more-recent results show some of the gains Miller cited, which were observed in 3-year-olds, had faded by age 5. However, he said, some “positive parenting” gains held up.

“I don’t know about dollars and cents, but anecdotally the stories we hear from people in the community certainly tell of the positive effect the program has provided to them and their children,” Miller said.

Dena Chappell manages an Early Head Start center at 2427 W. Boone Ave. that works with drug users and other “high-risk” parents. Participants get in-home counseling on health, nutrition, education and the availability of social and mental health services. They are required to bring their children to the center once a week for a “stay-and-play” session in which they practice their parenting skills.

All 29 Spokane-area Early Head Start, Head Start and ECEAP centers strive to involve parents, Chappell said.

“They help to make decisions and vote on many different things in our program, which builds skills in those parents,” she said.

Men, in particular, are encouraged to get involved in their children’s lives.

Chappell said her center recently had a science night for fathers and father figures, in which they joined children in performing experiments and making mini-pizzas. Also, the West Central Community Center gymnasium has been opened occasionally so fathers and children can share a night of recreation.

The men’s events have the added benefit of giving mothers some time off, but a mother-child gathering is planned next month at the West Central center, Chappell said.

“In order for children to succeed, we have to have strong and successful families,” she said.

Teaching social skills

Chappell believes teaching social skills is one of the most important things Head Start does.

“We know that children have to learn social and emotional skills,” she said. “That’s a critical part of their education.”

Head Start’s Martindale assesses the health, social service and nutritional needs of the children and tries to help their parents meet those needs.

Martindale also screens for hearing problems with a computerized device that measures vibrations on eardrums, and she uses a photographic device to look for vision problems among children too young to take a tumbled-E chart seriously.

After being referred to medical professionals, four children got glasses last fall and three got tubes to drain fluid from their ears.

Young children may not know they have poor vision, but “after they get glasses and they can see, they’ll tell us all about it,” Martindale said.

Aimee Moses, a Head Start “graduate” who now lobbies for the program, said her 2-year-old adopted son, JorDunn, “has a new world” since getting glasses and ear tubes last year as a result of routine Early Head Start health screening.

“He quit running into things, it helped on his stability of walking, and he is calmer and not as aggressive or frustrated with things,” Moses said.

Also, she said, JorDunn’s unintelligible speech quickly cleared up when the ear tubes improved his hearing.

“What would be great is if every child in the city could come to Head Start, because they all need this screening,” Chappell said.

But they can’t. Head Start generally is available only to families with annual incomes below federal poverty levels: $20,000 for a family of four, $13,200 for a family of two. It doesn’t matter how many parents are in the household.

Miller said the Head Start and ECEAP programs she manages under the auspices of the Institute of Extended Learning division of Community Colleges of Spokane have only 1,150 positions for children, not quite half enough for those who are eligible.

ECEAP is a Washington state version of the Head Start preschools for children 3 and 4 years old. Head Start provides 669 slots in Spokane; ECEAP, 481.

Miller said the problem is much worse among children 2 years old and younger who are eligible for the Early Head Start program. Only 210 Spokane-area children, about 4 percent of those who are eligible, are admitted.

The overall enrollment of 1,360 in the three programs hasn’t changed in five years. Until last month, funding also had been flat.

Miller said the problem has been compounded because of pay raises the state Legislature has authorized for the Community Colleges of Spokane employees who provide the service. Raises ranging from 3.2 percent to 15.7 percent will take effect in July.

Miller had been facing a shortfall of approximately $402,000 on a budget of roughly $8 million in the 2007-08 fiscal year, but Congress last month allocated about $100,000 more for the Spokane Head Start programs.

Also, Miller said, the newly approved state budget is expected to provide about $50,000 a year for two years.