Early Education by Network

A NY Times Article describes a recent trip by President Obama to a school in Pennsylvania in which he announced higher standards for financing for Head Start, a program that offers preschool training for children from low-income families. Obama declared that if Head Start was not meeting its performance objectives, grant money would go to other preschool education networks that were: "If a program isn’t giving children the support they need to be ready for school, then other organizations will be able to compete for the grant. We will take money from programs that don’t work and put it into programs that do.” This stance is consistent with Kamarck's description of Government by Network in which the federal government offers competitive grants to whichever organization best meets the government's criteria. This article, however, failed to mention what criteria the Obama administration would use nor did it assess whether the criteria is appropriate.