EXCERPT FROM: Los Angeles Times
By Carla Rivera
At a Pomona preschool recently, children played with a large wooden train set, built a fort with colorful cardboard blocks and listened attentively as their teacher discussed ways to be safe in school and outdoors.

EXCERPT FROM THE INQUIRER
By Thomas Fitzgerald and Dan Hardy
President Obama visited a Head Start center in Yeadon on Tuesday to announce stricter performance standards for the federal preschool program for children from low-income families, using the occasion to attack congressional Republicans for blocking his education and jobs agendas.

EXCERPT FROM: KTRE News
By Donna McCollum
NACOGDOCHES, TX (KTRE) - "It's a lot of if's, what if's," is how Nacogdoches Head Start director Weldon Beard explains the last few months.

EXCERPT FROM: Victoria Advocate
By Sonny Long
Amanda Castro wasn't thrilled when she received a telephone call telling her that the Head Start program at DeLeon Elementary would no longer be available for her 4-year-old daughter, who is attending school for the first time.

EXCERPT FROM: WNYC.org
By Cindy Rodriguez
NEW YORK, NY April 12, 2010 —The city's Administration for Children's Services says it's raising the quality of subsidized childcare programs for kids under five. The agency says now families can expect more classroom staff, on-site social workers, eight-hour days all year long, and frequent progress reports. The programs serve mostly low income families. The new programs will be modeled after Head Start, the well-regarded program that is currently reserved for only the neediest families.

EXCERPT FROM: WCTV.tv
Press Release
ATLANTA, Ga., (January 4, 2010) – The 2008-2009 data for Georgia Head Start, Early Head Start and Migrant/Seasonal Head Start was released by the Georgia Head Start Collaboration Office and there is good news for Georgia’s children. Last year, Georgia Head Start was funded to serve 23,247 children – however, the program was actually able to reach nearly 28,000 children by offering blended services to children and their families. Georgia’s Pre-K Program and Head Start are able to serve 4,000 more children by partnering to provide blended caseloads statewide.

FLORENCE - The Florence school district plans to expand its Head Start program in January.

UNION -- Head Start, an educational booster program for the rural poor, has been awarded a $50,000 state grant for improvements to the Endicott Children's Center in the Town of Union.

MHCC offers free childcare if students meet income requirements for Head Start eligibility and if they are enrolled in at least nine credits per term.

We started this series with a train metaphor, describing early education programs as trains moving down various tracks to deliver children to elementary school ready and eager to learn. More than a decade ago, when a few states started developing new paths for publicly funded preschool, the tracks already laid by Head Start seemed outdated and distant from what states were constructing. The unspoken, yet as it turns out, overstated, assumption was that state pre-K was aiming for literacy and kindergarten readiness, while Head Start was pointed toward children's health and social well-being.