September 26, 2025
Thank you for contacting me to express your support for the Head Start and Early Head Start programs. I appreciate your input on this important issue and welcome the opportunity to respond to you directly.
Like you, I am a strong supporter of Head Start, which provides early learning and development, health, and family well-being services to promote the school readiness of children from low-income families. Head Start has served nearly 40 million children nationwide since its founding, and, in Massachusetts, Head Start programs served over 11,000 children and employed over 4,000 people in the 2023-2024 program year. As the father of three young children, I understand firsthand how essential early childhood education is to ensuring every child has a strong foundation for academic, social, and emotional growth throughout their life.
I am committed to providing access to child care for all Americans. That is why I joined my colleagues in sending letters to the House Appropriations Committee requesting robust funding for the Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five program (PDG) and Head Start in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 spending bills. On March 11, 2025, the House passed H.R. 1968, a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government through September 30. The CR maintains funding for these programs at FY 2024 levels, which authorized and appropriated $315 million for PDG and $12.27 billion for Head Start.
Further, you may be interested to know that I strongly support direct-to-provider operations grants for Massachusetts. These grants, initially created with funding provided through the American Rescue Plan Act, provide monthly allocations of public funds to early childhood education providers based largely on the number of children that a provider is licensed to serve. These grants also provide additional funding to programs that serve low-income children and that employ more educators, incentivizing lower ratios of children to teachers and thus improving the quality of early learning programs. Direct-to-provider grants have worked as intended, allowing providers to stay open, increase teacher pay, and minimize tuition hikes.
Funding for high-quality child care and early education is an investment in American families and our economy. As your Representative, supporting families with young children is extremely important to me. Please be assured that I will keep your views in mind should legislation related to Head Start be considered in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me about this important issue. Your comments help me to better represent the people of our Congressional District. Please do not hesitate to email me through my website at auchincloss.house.gov or call my office at (202) 225-5931 if I can be of any further assistance to you.
Sincerely,
Jake Auchincloss
Member of Congress
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