For nearly 40 years, MBAE and our employer members and business affiliates – now representing more than 35,000 employers across the Commonwealth – has recognized the importance of giving every child a strong start in life.

That is why MBAE is urging the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to withdraw its proposed rule, Reducing Burden for Head Start Programs (Docket No. 2026-16134), which would weaken the quality standards around educator best practices, screening requirements, and comprehensive family supports that make Head Start an effective early education and development program for more than 10,000 children across the Commonwealth.

Head Start’s impact stretches far beyond early education. Across Massachusetts, 28 Head Start agencies support the holistic needs of young learners, including health, dental and nutrition services, as well as meaningful engagement with families. Together, these services help prepare children for success in school while providing working families with greater stability and access to high-quality early childhood opportunities. The Head Start program connects families to supports they need to thrive, and is an early investment in the Commonwealth’s talent pipeline and long-term economic competitiveness.

The proposed rule would undermine this successful program model in significant ways:

• The proposed rule would eliminate federal standards for best practices in teaching and learning. These standards are research-based and support education quality, child safety, and healthy development. Their removal would render the program useless in many states.
• The proposal would also remove the requirement that all children receive educational assessments and screenings, which allow for the early detection of developmental delays and disabilities. Early detection of these conditions is crucial to ensuring that students can live up to their full potential and enter kindergarten ready to succeed.
• By removing the ability for families to self-attest to their homelessness status or their child’s age, the proposed rule would result in 8 percent of children nationwide losing access to Head Start programs. This provision is another sign of this administration’s attempts to prevent families from accessing programs that might result in the narrowing of income gaps.

MBAE recognizes the need to review Head Start regulations and streamline certain requirements in order to strengthen the program while reducing regulatory burden on states and programs, but the changes in this proposed rule would have the opposite effect – they would gut the a highly effective program that has a proven track record of lifting children and families out of poverty through the route of educational achievement.

We urge HHS to withdraw this proposed rule on behalf of Massachusetts business leaders and families. Read the official public comment on Docket No. 2026-16134 from our Executive Director, Ed Lambert, here.