The Republicans’ work with Head Start — which focuses on preschool education, but also emphasizes medical care, nutrition, parental counseling, and social interaction for nearly 1 million children — has been a problem for a while now. For example, Dick Cheney, in 1986, was one of only a handful of members of Congress to vote against federal funding for the program.<\/p>\n
More recently, the Bush administration has tried to cut Head Start funding<\/a> and stifle criticism<\/a> from teachers and parents concerned with the program’s future. In perhaps the most embarrassing Bush-related debacle, the same person the president tapped to head the federal Head Start program also badly mismanaged more than $150,000<\/a> in Head Start grants.<\/p>\n As if that weren’t enough, now the GOP has picked a new Head-Start fight: letting the centers discriminate on religious grounds<\/a> while using federal funds.<\/p>\n The House moved Thursday to shore up Head Start’s academics and finances, but debate about updating the preschool program turned heated over the role religion can play in hiring. <\/p>\n Republicans were ready to amend the Head Start bill so churches and other faith-based Head Start centers could factor religion into their hiring. Democrats called that idea discriminatory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The debate on the House floor got into some turgid details, but the situation isn’t that complicated: For more than 30 years, Head Start centers that receive tax dollars have not been permitted to discriminate in hiring. This year, Republicans set out to change that<\/a>. Boehner and Boustany said that religious groups can already receive grants through Head Start, and that’s true. They also said that these same religious groups should be able to hire those who share their faith-based convictions. That might be persuasive, were it not for two factors:<\/p>\n 1. If an employer — any employer — wants to discriminate on religious grounds, they shouldn’t accept to be subsidized through the government with our money; <\/p>\n 2. Publicly-funded Head Start programs are secular<\/i>. If employees are going to help children with coloring, reading, and nap time, their religious beliefs shouldn’t make any difference.<\/p>\n
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\nReps. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Charles Boustany (R-La.) pushed a provision in the larger Head Start reauthorization bill that would allow religious groups to house Head Start centers, receive tax dollars, and<\/i> discriminate against job applicants if they’re part of the “wrong” religion, or if their personal characteristics (gay, single parent, etc.) are offensive to the center’s administrators.<\/p>\n