{"id":7479,"date":"2013-03-08T15:31:59","date_gmt":"2013-03-08T20:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=7479"},"modified":"2013-03-08T15:31:59","modified_gmt":"2013-03-08T20:31:59","slug":"afternoon-read-head-start-and-the-sequester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/03\/08\/afternoon-read-head-start-and-the-sequester\/","title":{"rendered":"Afternoon read: Head Start and the sequester"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>OK. We all get it. The sequester is a big deal. Not surprisingly, whether it’s an unmitigated mess or a “tough love” measure in a much-needed move toward austerity<\/a> seems to depend largely on your views on the ideal size of government.<\/p>\n

I do believe, though, that it’s safe to say no one wants to be standing in the middle of the road when the sequestration 18-wheeler comes hurtling down it.<\/p>\n

But now the rubber from that 18-wheeler is on the road, and unfortunately, that’s where many organizations are finding themselves. Earlier this week, I blogged about how Fort Drum would be impacted by the sequester<\/a> (Joanna Richards also looked at this question<\/a> in a late-February report) and, before it kicked in on March 1, we saw predictions of how it would impact New York state<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One program that’s standing right smack on the yellow line is Head Start. The Watertown Daily Times reports today that Head Start in Northern New York stands to loose more then $300,000 under sequestration<\/a>. While local agencies don’t know the details yet, it seems programs will be cut by five percent, and they’re trying to figure out just how to deal with that.<\/p>\n

There has been an awful lot of discussion lately<\/a> about Head Start,\u00a0 which I had thought, until recently, to be a fairly non-controversial program. As a reminder, its mission (this from the paper) is to “promote…school readiness of children from birth to age 5, from low-income families.” In other words, it helps kids be ready for school when it’s time for them to go to school, giving them a “head start”, if you will.<\/p>\n

Marie Ambrose, the director of Head Start in St. Lawrence County, said these cuts were exceptionally deep: “I’ve been with the agency for 27 years, and I don’t remember a cut like this…It’s our hope we will not have to reduce enrollment or staffing, but that’ll be very difficult to do.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK. We all get it. The sequester is a big deal. Not surprisingly, whether it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7479"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7482,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7479\/revisions\/7482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}