Head Start

Re “Putting Politics Over Preschool,” Commentary, Aug. 9:

I was able to see and experience the benefits of Head Start while pastoring a church in Sacramento for nine years. Children from the surrounding neighborhood who lived in low-income apartment housing were given invaluable learning opportunities that middle-class children only four miles away received automatically in their private and suburban public schools. Most importantly, the parents of these children were given opportunities to learn with their children.

It is hypocritical and mean-spirited that a few ideological Republicans (to use Kay Mills’ term), the party that likes to champion “family values” and individual merit, are preventing the expansion of a program that seeks to give children the very basic skills that would give them a chance to compete in our present day and age.

THE REV. MARK M.

NAKAGAWA

West Los Angeles United Methodist Church