A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Chapter 3

What Are the Needs of Even Start Families?: A Review

In requiring projects to serve families most in need, Even Start is unique among national educational programs that target low-income populations. Other programs generally have one or two specific need indicators as enrollment criteria. For example, Title I participants must reside in a high poverty area and in a school district where many children are educationally disadvantaged. Among Head Start families in 1996-97, the distribution of household income was virtually the same as the distribution for Even Start families. However, in terms of parents' educational background and English proficiency, Even Start families were more disadvantaged than Head Start families.⁵¹

The national evaluation has consistently shown that Even Start projects recruit and serve families who have substantial needs in multiple domains, including parents' economic self sufficiency, literacy and academic skills, parenting capabilities, and children's developmental opportunities. The profiles of participant characteristics attest to the projects' achievements in reaching very needy populations in their communities. The profiles also highlight enormous challenges inherent in implementing a comprehensive, integrated family literacy program that can accommodate the multiple needs of participants within available resources and time frame. Many seasoned practitioners working with Even Start have concluded that Even Start is "a very difficult program to implement." As we proceed to Chapters 4 and 5 to discuss program implementation issues and the amount and nature of services projects offered to Even Start participants, it is important to keep clear sight of the multiple challenges that projects and participants face together in their efforts to achieve their goals.

51.   Seventy percent of Head Start parents had at least a high school diploma or GED (Abt Associates Inc., 1997); 14 percent of Even Start parents had these credentials. Based on data on participants' ethnicity, we estimate that limited English proficiency was more prevalent among Even Start parents than among Head Start parents. In 1996-97, 39 percent and 4 percent of Even Start families were headed by Hispanic and Asian parents, respectively, while Hispanic and Asian children represented 25 percent and 1 percent of Head Start participants (United States General Accounting Office, 1998).

-###-

[Part 7: What Are The Needs of Even Start families]

[Chapter 4: What Resoures Support the Even Start Services?]