Gutting of Head Start is tragedy for young children
What a tragedy that Head Start is being gutted. For 61 years, since its establishment in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, Head Start has provided early education and poverty support for over 30 million children under age 6.
In June 2025, President Donald Trump demanded zero funding for Head Start, calling the program “radical.” That request failed, so now the administration has plans to remove most of the 133 pages of Head Start requirements. Lost standards include math and literacy curriculum, small class sizes, medical screenings, home visits, disability services, nutritious meals and even the requirement that children brush their teeth after meals.
Critics of these proposed changes say this is a backdoor way to dismantle the entire program. No teacher should be expected to teach a class three times the recommended size for young children.
According to The New York Times, Ruth Friedman, a childcare policy expert, says the proposed changes are a massive gutting of the program. “Eliminating Head Start performance standards guts science-based standards that ensure our youngest learners get what they need to succeed.”
Our children will be sacrificed by the draconian changes to this vital educational program!
MARY SCOTT GOULD, DECATUR
Trump can’t separate personal from policy
Recently, Donald Trump announced Russia’s release of Robert Gilman, an American citizen and former U.S. Marine Corps veteran, who spent four years in a Russian prison, and we are all grateful that Gilman is back home with his family.
In announcing the release, the president claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin released Gilman on a “humanitarian basis” and that Putin “did not ask for a prisoner exchange or anything in return.”
What President Trump doesn’t seem to grasp is that Putin has already received what he seeks in prisoner releases such as this — Trump’s weak support for Ukraine in its war against Russia and his long-standing tendency to support Putin. For example, in early 2025, he said that he trusted Putin to keep his word on a potential peace deal because “we’ve always gotten along well.”
Whether it is scaling back military drills with South Korea because he has a “good relationship” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un or limiting support for Ukraine because he and Putin have “always gotten along well,” it is unsettling and dangerous that President Trump doesn’t seem capable of separating personal relationships from our national foreign policy interests.
LEE RAUDONIS, ATLANTA
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