Answer to Question 1
An ideal response will:
1. Identify the Head Start program as a preschool program designed to help poor children get ready for kindergarten that was enacted in 1964 as part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society agenda.
2. Note that the program has served more than 900,000 children each year at a cost of about 7,000 per child in 2013.
3. Discuss how the program, in addition to educating preschoolers, also has provided healthy meals and snacks, monitored child health care, and worked with parents to encourage greater involvement and literacy.
4. Note that difficulties have been encountered in achieving desired student-teacher ratios and in meeting the needs of the population because funding covers only about one-third of eligible children.
Answer to Question 2
An ideal response will:
1. Identify the first social policy programs as going into effect shortly after the Revolutionary War, when the first programs were established to help soldiers disabled in battle and to provide retirement pensions for officers.
2. Describe how programs for veterans were expanded in the 1800s, including the establishment of the first old soldiers' homes and financial assistance for widows of soldiers.
3. Discuss how the number of social policy programs exploded during the twentieth century, beginning with the Great Depression when programs were created to help low-income, unemployed, and older citizens.
4. Note that by the end of the twentieth century, more than 2,000 social policy programs had been developed to address a wide variety of issues.