December 2003

Head Start: Better Data and Processes Needed to Monitor Underenrollment

The extent to which Head Start programs have enrolled fewer children than they are funded to serve is unknown because the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) does not collect accurate national data and does not monitor underenrollment in a uniform or timely manner. While some modest fluctuations in enrollment are to be expected, regional offices had differing definitions of unacceptable underenrollment, and the approaches they used to identify it were either not timely or not systematic. The regional offices identified a total of about 7 percent of grantees as unacceptably underenrolled in 2001-02, significantly less than the percentage of grantees reporting enrollment ratios below 100 and 95 percent on ACF's survey of grantees (see chart below). As a result of differences in regional definitions of what constitutes an unacceptable level of underenrollment, grantees with similar levels of underenrollment may be treated differently across regions.