What are the stats on Head-Start kids after age 18 compared to non-Head-Start kids in the same neighborhood....(and same # parents, income)

Obama's administrative report three weeks ago confirmed the Head Start does not work! Why should we be throwing more money into a failed program?

Gov. Mark Dayton is asking the Legislature for $44 million in the next two years to fund quality preschool for 10,000 needy children

Where is the $44M to fund 10,000 Middle Class Children? Where is the $44M to fund 10,000 upper middle class children? The public already provides a K-12 Education. If a parent wants pre-school education for their children its on their dime! This is nothing more than daycare for the poor! BTW $44,000,000 divided by 10,000 kids is $440 per kid per year or $8 dollars per week.

What children need is a loving, supportive home life if they are to be successful.

The term "disadvantaged youth" is just a feel-good synonym for absentee and/or poor parenting. Single-parent homes have nearly doubled since 1960, and 15 million American kids (one-third of all kids) are being raised without a father. Multiple studies show that fatherlessness negatively impacts the social and emotional development of kids. Unless and until the crisis of single-parent households is addressed, programs such as early childhood ed are simply a bandaid on a much deeper societal problem.

According to Health and Human Services, the Head Start Program has no lasting effects. It is a waste of money. Everyone knows that the real odds of increasing a child's success rate is for parents to behave like parents and read to their children. Maybe we should send the parents to preschool. All kidding aside, it was back in the 60's that government convinced women that two parents were no longer needed in the home. They have worked diligently to convince us that they, the government, could take care of children better than a parent. They have destroyed the family unit. We are now seeing the result.

I see some very ignorant comments. Early education works, that is why the MN early childhood Education council has Fortune 500 CEO's on it's board of directors and is supported by the Chamber of Commerce. The state saves money in the future, estimated at $10 for every $1 invested. These savings come in less welfare spending, court costs, incarceration costs, and more tax revenues from these people getting higher paying jobs.

Jakein08: Claiming the state saves $10 for every $1 it spends is as ridiculous as saying Obama saved us from a depression or nuclear disaster. No one can prove it, so who are you trying to fool? It is merely an opinion. If we truly saved $10 for every $1 we spent we would not have the problem we are having today.

The main problem here is government financially rewarding the poorest among us for having the most children. Welfare recipients should be concentarting on getting educated themselves and developing job skills before having additional children at taxpayers expense.

Soon the government can be every child's mommy and daddy.