Undertaking 2025, a conservative coalition’s plan for a future U.S. Republican presidency, proposes eliminating the federal Head Begin training program.
For a number of months, claims that Project 2025 intends to get rid of the U.S. Head Begin program, which supplies early childhood training and providers to low-income households, have circulated in numerous media outlets and on social media platforms, including posts by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. “Donald Trump’s Undertaking 2025 would get rid of the Division of Schooling and eliminate Head Begin,” Harris’ account on Fb wrote.
“Undertaking 2025 cuts the Head Begin program,” one X consumer wrote, adding that, “Undertaking 2025 goals to chop pathways to success.”
Certainly, the declare circulated on a number of social media platforms, together with Facebook, X, TikTok, and Instagram.
They’re right. “Mandate for Management 2025: The Conservative Promise,” a doc outlining Undertaking 2025’s objectives, explicitly recommends eliminating the Head Begin program, so now we have rated this declare as true.
What Undertaking 2025 Doc Says?
The advice to get rid of Head Begin has sparked vital criticism, as many view it as important for supporting low-income households. In response to the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies’ (DHHS) web site, Head Begin programs assist kids’s development from start to age 5 by means of providers centered round early studying and growth, well being, and household well-being.
The proposal to get rid of Head Begin was outlined within the “Mandate for Management” chapter on the DHHS, authored by Roger Severino, vp of home coverage at The Heritage Basis. Particularly, this suggestion appeared within the part concerning the Workplace of Head Begin (OHS) on web page 482, studying:
Get rid of the Head Begin program. Head Begin, initially established and funded to assist low-income households, is fraught with scandal and abuse. With a price range of greater than $11 billion, this system ought to operate to guard and educate minors. Sadly, it has achieved precisely the other. In actual fact, “roughly 1 in 4 grant recipients had incidents wherein kids had been abused, left unsupervised, or launched to an unauthorized individual between October 2015 and Could 2020.” […] Analysis has demonstrated that federal Head Begin facilities, which offer preschool care to kids from low-income households, have little or no long-term tutorial worth for youngsters. Given its unaddressed disaster of rampant abuse and lack of optimistic outcomes, this program needs to be eradicated together with the whole OHS. On the very least, this system’s COVID-19 vaccine and masks necessities needs to be rescinded.
The doc criticizes Head Begin for alleged inefficiencies, security violations, and an absence of long-term tutorial advantages for collaborating kids. The paragraph referenced an article from the Heritage Basis in November 2022, titled, “Over 1,000 Security Violations Mar Head Begin. Kids Deserve Higher,” authored by Madison Marino, senior analysis affiliate from the Heart for Schooling Coverage at The Heritage Basis.
“Head Begin has confronted a number of occurrences of monetary fraud and little one abuse over many a long time. And people who attend Head Begin do no higher in class than comparable kids who don’t, which suggests Head Begin has little or no long-term tutorial worth for youngsters,” the article claimed.
The article was initially revealed by the The Daily Signal, a conservative information web site, and was primarily based on an precise, September 2022 review launched by the U.S. Workplace of Inspector Common, titled, “ACF [Administration for Children and Families] Ought to Enhance Oversight of Head Begin To Higher Defend Kids’s Security.”
The federal evaluation acknowledged that “roughly one in 4 Head Begin grant recipients obtained an opposed discovering from ACF for little one abuse, lack of supervision, or unauthorized launch between October 2015 and Could 2020. These opposed findings encompassed 1,029 particular person incidents.” It additionally concluded that the ACF “is just not conscious of all incidents wherein kids within the care of a Head Begin heart are abused, left unsupervised, or launched to an unauthorized individual, impeding ACF’s efforts to guard kids’s security.”
Undertaking 2025 and Schooling
This was not the primary declare associated to training and Undertaking 2025 that now we have investigated. For example, in August 2024, we fact-checked whether or not Undertaking 2025 proposes that every one public highschool college students needs to be required to take the navy entrance examination (true). We additionally confirmed Undertaking 2025 has known as to close down the U.S. Division of Schooling. In September 2024, we looked at claims that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump stated: “I am gonna shut the Division of Schooling and transfer training again to the states” (true).
Trump has publicly distanced himself from the Heritage Basis’s Undertaking 2025 doc. As a substitute, he introduced Agenda47 as his official set of proposals, which shares some common objectives with Undertaking 2025. The diploma of affect Undertaking 2024 may have on his administration is but to be decided.
For additional studying, we advocate our complete article on the subject, “What to Know About Project 2025, the Pro-Trump Plan to Overhaul US Government.”
