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The History of Head Start 

In January 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a War on Poverty.  His administration recognized what researchers were beginning to prove: that the earliest years of a child's life are not just formative — they are foundational. If poverty was ever going to be broken as a cycle, it had to be interrupted before a child ever walked through the doors of a kindergarten classroom. Sargent Shriver convened a panel of experts to design a comprehensive child development program for children in low-income families — one that addressed not only education, but also children's health, nutrition, and social-emotional development, while giving communities a real stake in its success. That program became Head Start.

Launched as an eight-week summer program in 1965, Head Start was designed to help break the cycle of poverty by providing preschool children of low-income families with a comprehensive program to meet their emotional, social, health, nutritional, and psychological needs. What began as a summer experiment quickly proved something the country desperately needed to hear: that investing in children early works. Head Start has since served more than 30 million children, growing from that eight-week demonstration project into full-day, full-year services and a wide range of program options. Head Start

The data backs up what families have always known. A 2021 study found that students enrolled in Head Start ended up with substantially higher high school completion, college enrollment, and college completion rates than comparable children who were not enrolled. Wikipedia Research shows that Head Start prepares children not just for kindergarten, but for lifelong success,  and children enrolled are more likely to graduate high school, enroll in college, and build healthy family foundations.  This is what real, sustained investment in early childhood looks like.

At Reach Dane, we are proud to carry that legacy forward in our community. Head Start was never just a program — it was a promise that every child, regardless of their zip code or their family's income, deserves a fair start. That promise is as urgent today as it was 60 years ago. The children we serve are proof of it.