While public school teachers from across South Carolina rallied against state budget cuts at the Statehouse, advocates of early childhood education want to be heard too.

The National Head Start Association held a conference call media briefing Wednesday from the National Press Club in Washington to defend continued federal funding for Head Start.

"It's not a program in crisis. It's doing fine," said Dr. George L. Askew, founder of Docs for Tots. Saving Head Start "is a fight we shouldn't have to be in."

NHSA says the Bush administration intends to dismantle Head Start and replace it with a block grant program for individual states to set up their own programs.

That would create "turmoil and confusion," require current vendors to rebid for the contracts, increase administrative costs and eliminate stringent national standards, said Allyson Cline, national director of the United Way of America's Success by 6 program.

A nation that wants to build a strong economy and believes no child should be left behind can ill afford to neglect the educational foundations of 900,000 children a year, Cline said.

Cline rejected the idea of moving the program to the Department of Education from the Department of Health and Human Services, which she said has the expertise to administer all facets of the program.

"Education needs to be a part of the program, but not be the program," she explained. Head Start also addresses a child's physical and emotional health issues, and provides services to the entire family.

About 87 percent of Head Start children get a medical screening, and of those, one-fourth are found to need additional services.

Three-fourths of the children get the additional services they need, Askew said. The reason the rest don't is primarily because providers are not available to them, he said.

Medical, emotional and school readiness services give children "a head start and a leg up," but 40 percent of at-risk children slip through that safety net and are not served by Head Start, Askew said.

Head Start is a program that works and should be expanded, not replaced with an unproven "pig in a poke," said the NHSA board chairman, Ron Herndon of Portland, Ore.

T&D Staff Writer Lee Hendren can be reached by e-mail at lhendren@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5552.

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