I was inconsolable that day in May of 1967. A 5-year-old me boarded the yellow school bus as I had done all year, but the driver looked puzzled when he saw me climb the three steps and head for a window seat on the bus. It never dawned on me that the party my class held the day before signified the end of the school year for my program.
I was a Head Start kid, the product of parents who never had an opportunity to pursue an education but were determined to make sure they looked for ways to eliminate the educational deficit they had experienced. So, they enrolled me in Head Start, a federally funded program begun in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration that has jumpstarted the learning process for millions of kids like me from low-income families.
After I reached my school, I found that the bus driver was right, hence the tears. The party was, in fact, to celebrate the end of the school year. I found that hard to accept. I cried for what seemed like hours because I didn’t want the learning to end. I didn’t know how to read books, only a few letters, before instruction from the Head Start teachers put me at the head of the class.
I would go on to learn shapes and colors and to sit quietly on the floor with my classmates as teachers filled in social gaps with lessons on manners, building friendships, and kindness. Who knew that I would one day lead a statewide PBS station with an iconic show called Sesame Street that taught the same thing?
I remember with great clarity the impact Head Start had on my life and how its teachings followed me when I entered the first grade, reading on a third-grade level.
That’s why I am absolutely devastated, mortified, that the federal cuts enacted and proposed to Head Start programs threaten the existence of learning centers that are guilty of nothing more than providing an educational lifeline to kids from marginalized communities. Several media outlets have reported that Head Start programs received $1.6 billion from Jan. 1 through Tuesday.
During the same period last year, the programs, which are operated by schools and nonprofits, received $2.55 billion. The billion-dollar reduction has forced inevitable staff reductions and closures. The Trump administration has called on Congress to defund the program entirely.
I’m transparent about my upbringing. For years, my mother worked at a chicken plant, where stench greeted visitors blocks before entering its gates. My dad, meanwhile, had a job requiring him to service massive machinery to keep them lubricated and running.
By the end of the day, it was difficult to tell the color of his oil-drenched uniform from its natural color. That’s why giving me and my siblings a head start was so important to them. They would not allow us to sit around and do nothing. Mandatory kindergarten at the time did not exist in several states.
My late parents would be in shock today to learn that a program that helps nearly 800,000 preschool kids and families annually is on the chopping block, part of a Project 2025 document that put a target on its undeserving back. They would never comprehend how educating kids who need a hand is a bad thing.
It worked for us. And it still does. The problem Head Start faces is its future rests in the hands of entitled people who have never worked at chicken plants or machine tool companies, failing to realize its value or what being marginalized feels like. It is part of the diversity, equity and inclusion discussion that powerbrokers in the White House can never understand. Truthfully, they choose not to.
In New Jersey, Head Start programs are continuing to operate, despite the Trump administration’s aggressive cost-cutting. The regional office providing administrative support is closed. In addition, five regional offices managing Head Start centers have been closed in cities ranging from New York to San Francisco. Early education for poor kids?
What an awful thing.
The timing of the cuts could not be worse. Among the hardest populations hit during the pandemic were low-income families with children with little access to broadband. As a country, we are still playing catch-up from the pandemic. The learning loss is real. But Head Start offers an opportunity for a reset. It remains an invaluable asset, ensuring that children starting preschool programs today are not caught in the learning loss web.
“It’s stressful because any time there is change without a lot of communication, it leaves a lot of unknowns,” Bonnie Eggenburg, president of the New Jersey Head Start Association, said in the recently published NJ Spotlight News story.
The cuts, of course, are part of the Make America Healthy Again plan spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk, a major Trump supporter who has announced that his days of leading the ill-conceived Department of Government Efficiency will soon end to allow him to return to his private business, which is hemorrhaging money. Recent news stories report that profits from Musk’s behemoth Tesla car enterprise have plummeted 71%, a drop attributed to public backlash connected to Musk’s scattered approach toward cutting government spending.
It has hit Americans hard, including Trump supporters, who, in growing numbers according to several polls, are questioning their blind support of a president obsessed with power.
The fate of New Jersey’s Head Start program is still unclear, and officials are waiting to see what happens next. New Jersey is part of Head Start Region 2, which also serves New York, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the NJ Spotlight News story. The closest office that remains open is in Philadelphia, which has responsibility for five other states and the District of Columbia, according to the report.
Head Start parents face difficult days when government fails them at such a basic level. I cannot underscore the importance Head Start had in my life back in the 1960s and now.
A decade ago, I was excited to pay it forward when I was asked to headline a Head Start conference in front of a packed room of parents, teachers, and supporters. It was an emotional time for me, a newspaper editor, to stand as an example for those parents in the audience who had the same lofty dreams for their kids as my parents had for me.
It is my hope that Head Start centers in New Jersey and around the country can hang on despite so unfairly having to fight for their existence. I don’t know where I’d be if it were not around. And I don’t know what will fill the gap for low-income families with nowhere else to turn.
Who will come to their rescue? I wish I knew.
This editorial was written by Ronnie Agnew, general manager of NJ Advance Media. He and other staff senior editors will regularly author editorials for The Star-Ledger and NJ.com. You may reach him at [email protected].
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