Congressional Digest

Excerpt

In May 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced Project Head Start, an eight-week, experimental summer program designed to prepare children of low-income families for kindergarten. Part of the President’s “War on Poverty,” the program included preschool classes, as well as health, nutrition, and social services. Johnson stated, “Children are inheritors of poverty’s curse and not its creators. Unless we act, these children will pass it on to the next generation.”

Project Head Start was well received by parents, educators, child development specialists, and community leaders. As a result, Congress e…