Head Start Professional Development: great leadership, great intentions and great expectations

Abstract

The article is a retelling of the professional development (PD) and related efforts of the Head Start program.  It provides an overview of the training and professional development efforts and the evolution of those efforts overtime. This HS professional development review is unique due to the author’s focus on teachers. The article uses a variety of resources, such as HS conference speeches and presentations, government reviews, reports of research, peer-reviewed articles, Head Start publications and regulations, and many retrospective books. Here, I argue that Head Start led the field to create professional learning experiences for and by its community-based staff members and it is not able to maintain high quality experiences for all young and adult learners yet. The presentation organizes the chronological review into a variety of periods and offers ideas for going forward.