Viewing page 69 of 132

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

MISSISSIPPI 
HEAD START PROGRAM:
ONE YEAR LATER

MARY P. ENDRES

HEADLINES WERE MADE last year by reports of research findings asserting that Headstart programs across the country were not very effective as measured by subsequent first grade achievement. Without developing an essay on the limitation of social science, I claim there is an alternative to evaluating programs by key-punching data and submitting them to a two-way analysis of variance. We all have childhood memories of the exclamation uttered by distant relatives by way of greeting the favorite nieces and nephews, “My, how you have grown!” Headstart programs have grown in many ways that defy objective evaluation, and perhaps this fact will serve to introduce what I hope may be one of the most subjective evaluative reports in the accumulating record of the Headstart movement. 

My own involvement in Headstart began with an invitation to journey to Cleveland, Mississippi in July, 1966, toy advise the Educational Director of Associated Communities of Bolivar County (ACBC) Headstart Program. The ACBC Program serves an entire county in the Mississippi Delta where the annual family income is purported to be $476 per year. There are seventeen Headstart center es located in eleven towns of Bolivar County. About 300 resource teachers, trainees, cooks, drivers, nurses, specialized professional personnel, and other workers, all from that area, are cooperating with the community people in making it possible for 1,300 young children from poor families to be given a chance to make a decent beginning in life. 

For one who was not aquatinted with Mississippi Negro culture and ethos, the scene of those early Headstart centers came as a surprise. Children were crowded into hot humid rooms, sat listessly on chairs, and were kept in order by switch-carrying teachers. These 
————
Dr. Endres is Professor, Department of Child Development and Family Life, Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana. (On leave to Urban Education Laboratory, Atlanta, Georgia, 1967-68.)

363

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-12 17:30:50