Head Start: Better Data and Processes Needed to Monitor Underenrollment

December 2003 Head Start: Better Data and Processes Needed to Monitor Underenrollment The extent to which Head Start programs have enrolled fewer children than they are funded to serve is unknown because the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) does not collect accurate national data and does not monitor underenrollment in a uniform or timely manner. While some modest fluctuations in enrollment are to be expected, regional offices had differing definitions of unacceptable underenrollment, and the approaches they used to identify it were either not timely or not systematic. The regional offices identified a total of about 7 percent of . . .