Dr. Edward Zigler, often called "the father of Head Start," is a Yale psychologist known for his groundbreaking research in child development. In 1964, Zigler was one of a panel of experts enlisted by the White House to come up with a program to help low-income kids. Thus was born a summer pilot project called Head Start. Thirty-seven years later, Head Start's preschools have served more than twenty million low-income children and their families, providing education, nutrition, and health care services to two generations of young Americans, and managing to survive a steady retreat from almost every other arena in the war on poverty.
Q: Do you find it's much worse for children under the more conservative administrations than it is with the liberals?
Zigler: Kids do better, frankly [when the economy is strong]. Jobs make great years for kids. The best children's program I know of is the Earned Income Tax Credit. Get kids out of poverty. Poverty is devastating.
I'm really not a partisan political person. I remember when I was in Washington they kept trying to get me to say whether I was a Republican or a Democrat. I just said, my politics are children. That's all I know anything about.
Link to interview- http://progressive.org/node/1546
Marian Wright Edelman
"If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you
lie, they will too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe
no portion of it for charities, colleges, churches, synagogues, and
civic causes, your children won't either. And if parents snicker at
racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison
adults still have not had the courage to snuff out".
"There's ignorance in people who just don't know that we have a national
child emergency. And there are a lot of people who are conveniently
ignorant--they don't want to know.
Renatte Cooper (Program Specialist, Office of Childcare in LA County)
"It's not all about you. You got to take your ego out of it and think about what's best for this child".
Raymond Hernandez (Executive Director, School of Early Childhood Education)
"My passion comes from wanting to make a difference. I'm not here to save the world, I'm here just to make a difference in the community I'm working".
Renatte Cooper (Program Specialist, Office of Childcare in LA County)
"It's not all about you. You got to take your ego out of it and think about what's best for this child".
Raymond Hernandez (Executive Director, School of Early Childhood Education)
"My passion comes from wanting to make a difference. I'm not here to save the world, I'm here just to make a difference in the community I'm working".
Dantaya,
ReplyDeleteI have been in Headstart for 15 years and I enjoy my job.The 3&4 year old curriculum in education is great, the children also learn to speak spanish, and it's just amazing how some children are so eager to learn other languages. The nutrition at our school is great, some kids may have only the meals we supply at school, so its great that we give them two meals a day and a snack. Our health care program is also fantastic we have the doctors and dentists come into the center to give the children health care.
Hello Dantaya,
ReplyDeletefrom reading, I am interested on learning more on Edward Ziegler and the importance of bilingual education. In the fall or sometime next year, I plan to enroll in foreign language courses and attend professional development on bilingual education, diverse curriculum. Thanks for sharing!
Tanya Terrell