Head Start for America’s Children Act of 2025 Proposes Fully Funding the 60-Year-Old Program

The year 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of Head Start, the federal program that has delivered early learning, health, nutrition, and family support services to about 40 million children and families since its inception. This milestone year has also become one of the most challenging periods in the program’s history.

In January, President Trump began his second term after campaigning on policy proposals drawn from Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint that explicitly calls for eliminating Head Start. By April, credible reports indicated that the administration was weighing a budget proposal that would zero out funding for the program. According to The New York Times, an earlier draft of the president’s budget proposal called for Head Start’s elimination based on claims that the program used a “radical” curriculum and gave preference to undocumented immigrants.

Advocates were relieved when the president’s budget proposal in May called for level-funding for the program, but the attacks on the program have only continued since then. A July policy announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would bar many immigrant families from taking advantage of the program (the policy shift is now tied up in the courts). And there are new signs that the Trump administration plans to take steps to repeal a Biden-era rule that would require Head Start programs to improve wages, benefits, and job quality for Head Start educators over time.

Amid this uncertainty, Congressional Democrats are advancing an alternative vision—one centered on strengthening and expanding Head Start. Today, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Head Start for America’s Children Act of 2025. The bill posits several changes to the program to expand its accessibility and increase its funding.

The bill authorizes $140 billion in mandatory funding for Head Start in fiscal year 2026 and every year after through 2030. It authorizes $863 million for extended Head Start operation grants. The act states that such funding will allow Head Start to provide services to all eligible families. As of 2024, Head Start served approximately one-quarter of eligible families, and Early Head Start (for infants and toddlers) served only ten percent of eligible families. In fiscal year 2025 (which ends September 30), Congress appropriated $12.27 billion to Head Start (including Early Head Start). As Congress gets closer to a decision about funding fiscal year 2026, the Senate Appropriations Committee has marked up the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act to propose funding for Head Start and Early Head Start at $12.36 billion, which is an $85 million increase from the prior year. The Head Start for America’s Children Act of 2025 would authorize more than eleven times that amount.

The bill requires Head Start to have at least 10 regional offices and two program offices of the Office of Head Start and for HHS to collect public input on the geographic regions these offices should cover. It requires the head of each office to ensure each region’s programs are adequately staffed. These components are likely in response to the Trump administration’s closure of five of ten regional offices last April along with layoffs of dozens of staff. In a press release criticizing the Trump administration’s cuts to Head Start, Senator Sanders argued, “At a time of greater income and wealth inequality than ever before, it is unconscionable for President Trump and Republicans in Congress to hand tax cuts to billionaires while slashing education funding, including for Head Start. If we are serious about caring about our young children, we must expand Head Start programs across the country to reach every working-class family.”

The legislation includes elements to make programs more accessible to families. It requires simplification of the enrollment process for families and especially for families of children with disabilities, families who qualify for public assistance programs, and children in kinship and protective services. It allocates $95 million to pilot community-level eligibility for Head Start in areas with high numbers of families with low incomes, meaning that individuals could qualify for programs through community membership rather than needing to individually apply for eligibility. Another $1.6 billion goes toward grants for child care providers to partner with Early Head Start and Head Start programs to build collaboration and support among existing early childhood educators. Five hundred million dollars goes toward establishing programs on college campuses for student parents, which would help provide support for the more than three million undergraduate student parents in the United States, nearly half of whom have at least one child under age six. The bill provides $5.3 billion to expand program hours and provide services through the summer, which the authors note will prevent many families from having to find child care during non-program hours and months.

The act has several proposals for addressing the early childhood education workforce shortage. In a nod to the Biden-era rule on Head Start, the law requires Head Start educators and staff to receive a salary of at least $60,000 per year with competitive benefits and salary scales. Head Start salaries have been historically significantly lower than kindergarten teachers’ salaries, despite efforts to increase them, which has contributed to workforce shortages. The legislation also addresses workforce recruitment and retention by creating a $37.5 million Rebuilding Head Start Workforce Grants program aimed at immediately staffing under-enrolled programs, including $3,000 bonuses for 125,000 educators. It also invests $8 million to $40 million toward Head Start partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and other Minority-Serving Institutions in order to recruit and train educators.

The bill amends the Head Start Act’s statement of purpose by adding mental health services to the list of core Head Start services, and it also names infants and toddlers as a specific group of program recipients. The bill addresses family and educator health by putting $80 million toward mental health screening for enrollees, monthly mental health consultations, and staff wellness breaks. It also provides $91.5 million for transportation to Head Start programs for children, including for children experiencing homelessness, and $5.6 million for updating facilities.

Decades of research have shown that Head Start participation is associated with cognitive, social-emotional, academic, and economic benefits for children and families. Yet the benefits would be exponentially greater if Head Start programs were fully funded. This newly introduced Head Start for America’s Children Act of 2025 seeks to authorize that full funding and provide further supports to unleash the power of Head Start for all eligible children and families.