A Comparison of a Sample of Full Year and Summer Head Start Programs Operated by Community Action Agencies and Local Education Agencies.

Data from a stratified random sample of full-year 1967-1968 and summer 1968 Head Start programs were re-analyzed to compare centers operated by local educational agencies (LEA) and community action agencies (CAA). The analyses indicated that CAA-operated programs were more likely to report parent participation in decision making and as paid staff, while LEA-operated programs were slightly more likely to report parent participation as volunteers; that CAAs had a higher proportion of paraprofessionals and LEAs more professionals; that CAAs recruited individual volunteers from a variety of sources, and LEAs mobilized formal community organization support; that CEAs were more likely to focus on family services and job training. Other findings included data on equipment, impact on children, medical and dental programs, ethnic and economic class of staffs, child eligibility, substantive content of the classrooms, and characterization of programs. The analyses provide a static picture of how program directors, teachers, and parents report some of their experiences. The differences involve structure rather than process of impact, and relatively few statistically reliable differences were, in fact, found between LEA- and CAA-operated programs. (Author/LH)