For many pregnant women in America, prenatal care is not accessible or affordable.
~Hillary Rodham Clinton, It Takes a Village (p.75)
Helping children become great learners starts early, and America has much to learn if it really wants to invest in the next generation. Many other countries have already learned these lessons.
In her 1992 New York Times essay, Everybody is Somebody’s Baby, Barbara Kingsolver writes about visiting Spain with her daughter: Children are the meringues and eclairs of this culture. Americans, it seems to me now, sometimes regard children as a sort of toxic-waste product: a necessary evil, maybe, but if it’s not their own they don’t want to see it or hear it or, God help us, smell it.
I think of Kingsolver’s essay when terrible policies are created in the name of America’s kids, and we measure everything around their academic performance by how it will improve the economy.
What if we focused on their welfare?
Or what about new parents needing community support? What would it be like if communities rallied around new mothers? Right now, we are far from this ideal.
Donald Trump has instigated such harmful changes affecting children, including dismantling Head Start, that even conservatives are surprised! This is saying a lot, since many in this camp have sought to change Head Start for years (Samuels, 2013).
It is also important to remember that Head Start serves young children with disabilities, helping them get a good start (See: Katy Neas: Head Start Was Built to Include Children With Disabilities. Don’t Weaken It).
According to Coral Davenport of The New York Times, these changes will likely lead to the program’s dismantling.
She states:
The rollback will remove most of Head Start’s 133 pages of requirements for math and literacy curriculums, class sizes, medical screenings, home visits and even a requirement that children brush their teeth after meals, according to three people with knowledge of the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
Head Start programs are now struggling with the Trump administration’s English only rule when early learners have always benefited from the skills and knowledge they already possess, building English proficiency upon those assets (Najarro, 2026).
Now, Head Start providers serving more than 39,000 children across 38 states find themselves in limbo, using temporary federal funds, not knowing if grant competitions will continue (Peetz Stevens & Liberman, 2026).
The implications of this for America are stark. We want children from lower-income neighborhoods to get the care they need and for their parents to have support, so their children do get a good head start! But if we really cared for America’s young, we’d do more as a country.
America Needs to Catch Up to Other Countries and Provide Non-Mandatory Universal PreK for All Parents!
Instead of ending Head Start, which Trump’s changes appear to really be about, America needs not only to save Head Start but to create a non-mandatory universal PreK program for all parents who need and want it.
I’m not talking about a PreK program that focuses on standards and pushes children to develop faster than is developmentally prudent, but a PreK program based on what helps early learners, brings out their curiosity about the world around them, and helps them have great childhoods.
Think Perry Preschool. From a University of Chicago Report:
These results show that high-quality early childhood education can strengthen families and has the potential to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.
How Other Countries Support Early Learners
In Kingsolver’s Spain, early childhood education called Educación Infantil is for 0-6-year-olds and is non-compulsory. The enrollment rate of children aged 3 to 5 is close to 100%.
Israel has compulsory universal PreK for 3- and 4-year-olds that started with children from lower socioeconomic neighborhoods and has since expanded. As of 2020, 99.7% of 3-5-year-olds were enrolled in Israel’s preschools.
Since 2019, Japan has offered PreK for three- to five-year-olds and subsidized infant and under-age-three care for families from lower-income households.
Denmark guarantees childcare for 2-year-olds during the day. Parents pay no more than 25 percent of the cost. That guaranteed spot continues until children enter after-school care at age 10. If parents stay home or hire a nanny, the government helps pay for that, too. Norway and Italy do something similar.
Finland, which has long led countries in how children perform academically and in the professional treatment of teachers, welcomes every child, and parents pay according to ability. They enable all children to attend, and there’s much play.
The same is true of France’s universal preschool école maternelle, which has most children attending free public programs by age 3, and some starting at age 2.
America’s Current Reality with Early Child Care, but What If?
Right now, to qualify for Head Start, parents must have income below the poverty line and meet many other eligibility requirements for their children to qualify.
But what if Head Start served all the parents who needed it, for children from lower socioeconomic neighborhoods with a low-income level certainly, but for parents of children with low to moderate income levels too and wealthier families? What if early childhood care brought us together as communities?
What if Americans cherished all their young so much, including children with disabilities, that they helped all of them get off to a good start from the start, for those who needed and wanted it, providing preschool and child care for all America’s children? Think long term.
None of this should be mandatory. If parents want to keep their young children at home, they should be allowed to. But I’ve known both Democrats and Republican parents who have struggled to find affordable childcare, knowing they had to work.
Hillary Clinton was right: it takes a village. If parents came together with community support for all children at a young age, starting before they’re born, think how they would come to know each other and care for each other, no matter their culture, background, or religious views
Past research shows that introducing children, with parental support, to well-resourced preschools staffed by qualified teachers, like the Perry Preschool, works and helps children get off to a good start.
PreK should not be about standardizing childhood but built on helping children know that beyond their parents and families, they are amazing and beloved for the individuals they are and that America’s adults will cherish them and keep them safe.
Head Start has always been about helping children and parents, and this program needs to expand so all children can get services if they want them, parents are supported, and everyone is valued and lifted because everybody should be somebody’s baby.
References
Clinton, H. (1996). It takes a village: And other lessons children teach us. New York, NY: Touchstone.
Samuels, C. A. (2013, May 15). Head Start Centers Feeling ‘Sequester’ Pain. Education Week, Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/head-start-centers-feeling-sequester-pain/2013/05
Najarro, I. (2026, August 17). What Head Start’s English-Only Rule Could Mean for English Learners. Education Week, Retrieved from Head Start Providers Struggle as Trump Admin. Holds Up Funding Competitions
Peetz Stevens, C. & Lieberman, M, (2026, August 18). Head Start Providers Struggle as Trump Admin. Holds Up Funding Competitions. Education Week, Retrieved from Head Start Providers Struggle as Trump Admin. Holds Up Funding Competitions
Davenport, C. (2026, July 31). Trump Administration Plans to Upend Head Start by Deregulating It. The New York Times, Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/us/politics/head-start-deregulation.html
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