Stop Trump’s war on Head Start!

Before President Donald Trump’s second term, the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing, ruling-class think tank, issued a 900-page platform calling for the U.S. government to carry out national and international attacks on the working class. The platform, Project 2025, was broad and far-reaching in its proposals, but since then it has actually increased a wave of fascistic attacks on poor and working people. For example it proposed that the entire federal bureaucracy be placed under direct presidential control. 

The Project called for ending Head Start, an anti-poverty program that has benefited 40 million children for 60 years, and shutting down the U.S. Department of Education. It attacked Diversity, Equity and Inclusion federal government programs in a preview to shutting down a broad range of programs opposing discrimination.

Trump actually said he opposed Project 2025, saying he didn’t know anything about it. But that was just a lie to divert working-class opposition. He does that all the time.

For example, in January 2025, in a leaked memo, the White House illegally shut down congressionally approved funding for Head Start and a wide range of other social service programs. A huge outcry from families and supporters forced the government to restart the program. As a result, Head Start operations were temporarily disrupted when the government’s intentions became known.

An important concession

Head Start began in 1965 as an anti-poverty program influenced by the Black Liberation movement, especially led by organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party. The struggle of Black communities against racist school segregation was broadened to raise the quality of education in the Deep South and other parts of the country.

This program has served millions of children as well as pregnant mothers for 60 years, including 800,000 in the last year for which data is available. Head Start was designed to assist low-income families with the prospect of ending poverty. 

Its services include early childhood education for children under six years old, services during pregnancy, indoor and outdoor physical activity, social and emotional support, nutritional education along with meals and snacks, mental health services, health and dental screenings, financial literacy classes, family engagement opportunities, as well as providing a career path for many parents to become Head Start staff. 

Across the country, the program is operated by 1,600 local organizations that oversee 14,000 individual Head Start programs with a yearly budget of $12 billion.

 Since early 2025, the Trump government has continued attacks on Head Start. In August of that year, after Trump tried to strip immigrant families from utilizing Head Start and other programs, hundreds of organizations representing parents, educators and community members spoke out against excluding immigrants from accessing the program, forcing a judge to pause immigration exclusion. 

A 2025 draft White House document calling for ending Head Start funding attacks it for the “radical indoctrination of our children.” It accuses the program of being “riddled with social-emotional learning” and “diversity, equity and inclusion programming.” It also attacked a Sesame Street webinar on racial justice. 

Struggle at home and abroad

U.S. imperialism pursues a war orientation both at home and abroad, such as waging a genocidal war with its ally, Israel, against women and children in Palestine and Iran. Tens of thousands of children, women and civilians in general have been murdered with U.S. weapons technology in Gaza. 

The government cages immigrant children at home too. It should be recognized that the U.S. court system has always jailed working-class children and youth, especially children of color in disproportionate numbers.

So now the government has singled out the low-income students at Head Start as its next target. Since the government has been unable to arbitrarily kill Head Start all at once, it wants to slowly decimate the program with deregulation. The Trump administration wants to eliminate 133 pages of requirements for class sizes, medical screenings, home visits and even a requirement that children must brush their teeth after eating.

The Trump government wants to destroy a lifesaving, basic safety net program with a death by a thousand cuts. Deregulation will save money, the government says. So what about the requested $1.5 trillion war budget which endangers millions of people in the Global South? 

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which represents thousands of teachers who work at Head Start, has strongly denounced the government’s plan to scrap the regulations. 

A representative of the Washington State Association of Head Start stated that healthcare, nutritious meals and disability services aren’t bureaucratic requirements but “are the reason Head Start has changed millions of lives.” (New York Times, Aug. 7)

Fight to save Head Start!