HEAD START TO BOTTOM: LEFTIST BUREAUCRATS DECLARE 'GOOD ENOUGH' FOR TAXPAYERS' KIDS

Oh, the hand-wringing! The Santa Barbara Independent is absolutely aghast. Their latest dispatch reveals a scandal of epic proportions: Head Start, that beacon of bureaucratic benevolence, might *gasp* have its 'standards' lowered. It's almost as if endless federal funding and ever-expanding mandates don't magically translate into better outcomes for children, but rather, a burgeoning administrative bloat ripe for 'efficiency adjustments' – or, as normal people call it, cutting corners because the money faucet is on full blast.

The Independent, bless its bleeding heart, believes that in our fair county, where the cost of living would make a Saudi prince flinch, we should be *strengthening* Head Start. 'Strengthening,' of course, is code for 'more taxpayer dollars, fewer questions asked.' What they fail to grasp, or conveniently omit, is that the entire enterprise of federally dictated childcare often becomes a patronage system, more concerned with meeting diversity quotas and filling administrative positions than actually teaching kids to read before the third grade. When you're perpetually funneling money into programs without rigorous, *independent* oversight, you don't raise standards; you raise the number of bureaucrats who define them.

Here's the Whipping Post take that the other outlets missed: The only 'standard' that truly matters to the progressive establishment is the steady flow of federal dollars into their preferred social programs, regardless of measurable success. Any talk of 'quality' is just window dressing for institutional expansion. It's less about ensuring kids get a 'head start' and more about ensuring that government agencies and their associated non-profits get a fat check. Perhaps if we actually empowered parents with school choice and kept more of their earnings, they wouldn't need a government program to tell them how to raise their children.