Parents’ Goals and Preschool Education

Abstract

Preschool program options for families in Israel are far greater than those available to families in the United States today. The largest preschool program in America is Project Head Start, a comprehensive child development program begun in the summer of 1965. It is the last remnant of President Lyndon S. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and has served more than six million children since it began. The term “comprehensive” means that Head Start is more than an educational program; it is designed to bring health care, social services, nutrition, and psychological services to preschool disadvantaged children and to involve their parents and/or community people as volunteers and paid employees in the program. Head Start was originally a small eight-week summer enrichment program aimed at helping poor children catch up with their more advantaged peers by the time they entered school together. The initial response to this program was overwhelming and now almost every county in the United States has a Head Start program. Head Start is a social action program designed to equalize educational opportunity for the very young through early medical screening and psychological assessment, by feeding hungry children and by providing social services to their families. In the area of parent involvement, however, there is still a long way to go.