[...]... This study therefore focuses on the program's development within the context of the passage and implementation of ESEA and of OEO's Follow Through Program 9 The book also considers the challenges faced by Head Start in the second half of the 1960s, including debates about the nature and control of the politically controversial Mississippi Head Start programs, Head Start as an integral part of community... others (such as staff of the u.S Children~s Bureau) opposed the entry of women into the labor force-especially those with children under the age of two Divisions remained regarding the advisability of this practice, but the war emergency mitigated the most intense public hostility toward it 24 In response to the large-scale entry of mothers into the workforce, the Community Facilities Act of 1941 (the. .. broader policy perspective on the origins and development of preschools and Head Start 10 The book ends by summarizing developments in preschool policy in the late 1950S and 1960s and discussing the valuable contributions of the Kennedy and johnson administrations to the creation and implementation of Head Start and other early childhood education programs The chapter also analyzes the relation between politics... examination of policies toward preschools and Head Start during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations is needed Although much of the earlier work emphasizes the role of Sargent Shriver, the Robert Cooke Head Start Planning Committee, and early childhood developmentalists, it does not consider other players such as federal education officials and members of Congress as thoroughly The early contributions of. .. however As the nation mobilized for World War II and the Great Depression tapered off, the number of WPA nursery schools declined The program was abandoned in 1943 23 The mobilization caused labor shortages in many sectors of the workforce, and women-often mothers-were recruited to staff the defense industry The temporary labor shortage helped many Americans accept the idea that working mothers were... Project Head Start: A Legacy of the War on Poverty 4 Other scholars have devoted surprisingly little attention to the origins of Head Start Although some older studies of the war on poverty may include a few pages or a chapter on the program, their authors lacked access to later archival and oral histories that offer additional insights 5 More recent scholars usually devote only a few pages to it, as is the. .. attacked the work of the Iowa scientists Not only did they reject the idea that IQ was not predetermined at birth, but they criticized the statistical methods employed in the Iowa studies 32 Thus, dissenting research was suppressed and the prevailing view that IQ remains constant over time and that children's learning depends on maturation dominated the field of child development during the first half of the. .. government participated in local education even before the 1787 drafting of the Constitution, when the Congress of the Confederation adopted the Survey Ordinance of 1785, reserving one section of every township in the Western Territory for establishment of EDUCATION, POVERTY, AND EARLY SCHOOLING IN THE KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION schools In 1787 the authors of the Northwest Ordinance declared that "religion,... educational but rather a broader early childhood development intervention for preschoolers Unfortunately, the 2 INTRODUCTION scholarly literature about the origin and nature of Head Start and other early childhood education programs in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations is limited and does not provide a balanced, in-depth analysis of the issue 2 Helpful introductions to the development of Head Start include... presidentiallibraries, and regional archives This analysis places the origins of Head Start within the broad historical context of the 1950S and early 1960s It encompasses the discovery" of poverty, the changing perspectives on early childhood education, and the development of experimental preschool programs funded by the Ford Foundation and other sponsors This study also explores President John F Kennedy's . Association xii ABBREVIATIONS OCD OE OEO OPED PPB RFP RPP&E SRS VISTA WPA Office of Child Development Office of Education Office of Economic Opportunity Office of Programs for Education of the Disadvantaged Planning-Programming-Budgeting. analysis of the issue. 2 Helpful introductions to the development of Head Start include Edward Zigler and Susan Muenchow's Head Start: The Inside Story of America's