f government operates. It is logical, to build up the base of "customers" who will support "business" in the future, while at the same time investing in maintenance of "capital" now to avoid huge expenses of repair and replacement later.
Calculating how much malnutrition has taken its toll on children without adequate diets is impossible to calculate. That it happens is certain; children have already been rendered permanently unable to achieve their actual potential because their brains were not allowed to develop as they were meant to be. That the majority of prison inmates are functionally or actually illiterate says much about where a malnourished child may end up. The ratio legislators need to know is 1:3. For every $1.00 spent on a program like Head Start which includes education, nutrition, and other programs to counteract poverty, the government saves $3.00 later on by not spending money on prisons and special education (CDF 21).
The Head Start program is designed to counteract these problems by providing education for the child and by meeting his or her intellectual, social, and emotional needs. It also provides medical and dental care, with mental health and nutritional services. Since the parent is as poorly equipped as the child, Head Start also provides child development and parenting workshops and classes, GED and ABE classes, as well as other social services (CDF 11). Perhaps one of the best arguments for a program like Head Start is that we have a future. Whatever kind it is, whether economically prosperous or one ravaged by war, that future will be occupied and operated by our children. Our retirement will be much more pleasant if we have taken the time to prepare them for this job.
Gamble and Zigler give an interesting example of how the child's future life is determined by what happens as an infant that they call the "threshold model." While a child will be genetically programmed to attain a certain heigh...