14. Department of Health and Human Services · Major · Needs Congress

Eliminate the Head Start program and the Office of Head Start

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Printed page 482 14. Department of Health and Human Services

“Eliminate the Head Start program. … Given its unaddressed crisis of rampant abuse and lack of positive outcomes, this program should be eliminated along with the entire OHS.”

What has happened

Aug 27, 2026 Not started
Head Start and the Office of Head Start both still exist and are still funded. The Administration for Children and Families has spent the window deregulating the program rather than ending it: it rescinded the COVID-19 mitigation requirement (2025-12-19, effective 2026-02-17), proposed removing the 2024 wage-and-benefit requirements (2026-05-12), and proposed rescinding and replacing the Head Start Program Performance Standards outright (2026-08-07) — each of which presupposes a continuing program run by OHS. No bill eliminating Head Start has been introduced in the 119th Congress.
- ACF direct final rule: COVID-19 Mitigation Policy Requirement in Head Start Programs; Recission (effective 2026-02-17)
  Primary Executive branch Dec 19, 2025
- ACF proposed rule: Restoring Flexibility To Support Head Start Program Access
  Primary Executive branch May 12, 2026
- ACF proposed rule: Reducing Federal Burden for Head Start Programs (rescind and replace the Head Start Program Performance Standards)
  Primary Executive branch Aug 7, 2026

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Negative search run 2026-08-27: bill titles among those we keep and search, from congress.gov, mentioning Head Start — 10 hits, every one of them protective or expansionary (Expanding Head Start Eligibility Act, Head Start for Our Future Act, Head Start for America’s Children Act, Every Child Deserves a Head Start Act, Head Start Shutdown Protection Act, Keep Head Start Funded Act), none eliminating the program or the Office of Head Start.
Reporting that the FY 2026 budget passback proposed eliminating Head Start, and that the enacted FY 2026 appropriation kept its funding level, rests on hhs.gov budget documents and on the text of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (Public Law 119-75). The HHS budget pages refused to open for us; the appropriations line item was not read. Both are leads.
The 2025 HHS restructuring cut ACF regional offices from ten to five, which affects how OHS operates; the announcement is on hhs.gov, which refused to open for us, and is a lead.

Action: eliminate
Object: Head Start program and Office of Head Start
ID: 1338