Head Start and ECEAP

Children from birth to age five from low-income families are eligible for Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Children from families receiving public assistance (TANF or SSI) are eligible for Head Start and Early Head Start programs, regardless of income. Children in foster care are also eligible regardless of family income.

Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) is a Washington State program modeled after the federal Head Start program. ECEAP provides comprehensive early childhood programs for preschool children and their families, including early childhood educational experiences, nutrition services, health screening and follow-up, family support and parent involvement. The target population for ECEAP is four year old children whose family incomes are at or below 110% of the federal poverty level.

In 2006, a projected 30% of the 11,414 young children in King County eligible for Head Start and ECEAP services were served by those programs based on the program funding level. This left 7990 eligible children unserved. Early Head Start enrollment in King County is 298, representing 2% of the eligible population (19,303).^[1] The significance of ECEAP and Head Start is that they tend to “even the playing field” for low-income children with regard to preparing those children for school. Children who participate in these programs, compared with low-income children who do not participate:

• Score higher in school readiness tests
• Have better language skills
• Are better prepared academically, especially in the areas of verbal and arithmetic skills
• Have better reading achievement score
• Retain these positive differential effects all the way through age 21.^[2]

“Because children’s readiness for school is strongly predictive of future academic performance, children who enter kindergarten behind their peers are unlikely to ever catch up.” Therefore, extending high-quality early learning programs to all children, but especially to children in poverty (whether through ECEAP, Head Start, in-home parent/caregiver nurturance, or high-quality childcare), is a key strategy for closing the achievement gap.

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