The Trump administration announced on Thursday plans to overhaul Head Start, the early education, nutrition, and health program which serves hundreds of thousands of low-income children. The proposed rule to rescind the majority of the program’s standards of care could have far-reaching effects for the nation’s most vulnerable families.
Current regulations for Head Start include more than 100 pages of specific requirements for research-backed school curricula, household visits, child-to-teacher ratios, and nutrition. These standards are expansive: For example, some regulations require childcare programs to serve snacks that satisfy a portion of a child’s daily nutritional needs, to provide developmental and medical screenings, and to assist parents of children with disabilities in obtaining adequate resources and care.
Experts worry that the removal of these standards will hinder early childhood development among Head Start participants, rather than introduce efficiency. Instead of looking to federal guidelines, around 1,600 Head Start operators—which include public schools and nonprofits—will now have to rely on state and local licensing requirements, which can be more varied—and more lax.
“[Head Start is] a program whose quality standards have really raised the bar for the way in which children receive early education across the board,” said Melissa Boteach, the chief policy officer at Zero to Three, an advocacy organization that focuses on early childhood development. “Now we’re talking about dramatically rolling those back in ways that will undermine the quality of the services and access to the services.”
Under current federal standards, for example, a maximum of four children under three years old can be cared for by one provider. Those Head Start teachers must meet coursework requirements in childhood education. The notice for the proposed rule argues that “any steps towards lower ratios will lead to lower cost per child costs, which will improve program efficiency.” However, state regulations on class size vary, as do the licensing requirements for teachers, meaning that the number of children to one teacher will be different across the country.
“There is a lot of variability across states and communities in the way that Head Start is designed and the way that it operates,” said Diane Schilder, a senior fellow in the Family and Financial Well-Being Division at the Urban Institute. Salaries for teachers and assistant teachers participating in Head Start already differ state-to-state.
“If states now have a bigger role, there is a greater probability that children and families in some states will have reduced access to high-quality services compared to other states,” Schilder continued.
Head Start and Early Head Start—which covers children between birth and age three—have been shown to improve early childhood outcomes. Head Start providers are required to participate in child nutrition programs such as the Child and Adult Care Food Program, and research has shown that participation in Head Start is associated with healthier weight outcomes and eating patterns. States with higher food insecurity have higher rates of participation in Head Start. There is also evidence that the program helps children with their social-emotional development and social skills.
Moreover, Head Start is a program which assists not only young children under age five, but also their parents, offering support services and education on how best to care for their child’s health and education. This can include such assistance as helping parents access SNAP and Medicaid, and finding transportation resources.
“As a two-generation program, the regulations are designed to focus not only on the high quality [services] for the children that’s based on research and evidence, but also the services to families, so that the whole family can thrive,” said Schilder. “So eliminating those requirements could eliminate those services.”
In the notice of proposed rulemaking, the Administration on Children and Families argues that the current regulations have become “overly prescriptive,” and are “often duplicating or elaborating upon requirements already established in the Head Start Act or other federal statutes and regulations.” The notice adds that rescinding and replacing the existing performance standards would “restore flexibility to Head Start programs and families, reduce regulatory burden, eliminate duplication with statutory requirements, reinforce state and local authority, and refocus federal oversight on core statutory priorities.” The administration said that the changes would save more than $2 billion and open up 200,000 more spots for children.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a press call with reporters that “this program works,” and said that Head Start had survived the “draconian cuts to many of our agency programs” during the first year of the Trump administration. Although it has long enjoyed bipartisan support, Head Start has been explicitly targeted by allies and members of the Trump administration, including budget chief Russell Vought. Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 initially eliminated Head Start funding, and the Government Accountability Office last year found that the administration had illegally withheld $12 million in funds to the program. The government shutdown in November also resulted in the temporary closure of some Head Start facilities, causing chaos for participants.
Programs could theoretically continue to follow the regulations even if they are no longer mandated. But Schilder pointed to a 2009 report that she co-authored, which found that childcare programs that did not partner with Head Start and thus were not required to follow the standards did not provide the same comprehensive services as those who were in partnership. Head Start programs are currently required to connect parents with employment assistance, for example, or offer developmental early intervention services.
“The way that Head Start is designed, there is a person who has to be designated to provide these supports to meet with the families, to give them the referrals, to connect them with community resources,” explained Schilder. “If programs are under budget constraints and they’re told they don’t have to do this, I can imagine some of them saying, ‘Okay, well, one way to balance the budget is to focus on a different set of services, for example, rather than those that are currently required.’”
The National Head Start Association said on Thursday that the organization, as well as the “Head Start community,” would be undertaking a line-by-line review to see if the proposed rule achieved its stated goals.
“Fewer rules cannot mean fewer results,” said Yasmina Vinci, executive director of NHSA, in a statement. “Head Start makes a promise to a family—that their child will be safe, healthy, and ready for school. That promise is the same in rural Montana as it is in Baltimore. We will read every page of this proposal against whether it keeps that promise or quietly lets it go.”
The public will have 60 days to comment on the proposed rule before it goes into effect, and there will be no immediate changes to the way Head Start is administered. But the idea of overhauling Head Start comes as actions by the Trump administration and the Republican majority in Congress have made it more difficult to access assistance. Last year, Congress approved legislation which dramatically slashed Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Even though tighter work requirements exclude households with children under the age of 14, efforts to shift greater amounts of the cost of SNAP and Medicaid onto states could result in further cuts to the programs that affect low-income families.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, found that more than 1 million children in 19 states have lost food benefits since this law was approved last July, as states respond to the new requirements and prepare to receive lower federal funding. As a greater share of costs are shouldered by states in the coming years, state governments may choose to further limit eligibility or make further cuts to the program. Meanwhile, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the number of children receiving Medicaid will decline by 3 million between 2026 and 2036, driven primarily by changes in the 2025 law.
All of these policies can result in higher amounts of stress for families. A recent survey by Zero to Three found that, by the end of 2025, more than half of parents of infants and toddlers reported difficulties in paying for essentials such as food and housing. Boteach stressed that economic pressures could have an important impact on the early development of children. Although a child may not understand that their parents are struggling with higher costs, they will be affected by their parents’ anxiety.
“We know that children’s brains between birth and three are growing at their fastest than they will at any time in their lifetimes, and that the relationships with their caregivers are foundational to how those brains develop,” said Boteach. “So when families are thrown into that kind of anxiety and uncertainty, it will have effects on young children and how they develop.”
