Update Head Start and Early Head Start spending/enrollment data to FY 2024

[MaxGhenis]

Current Data

Both Head Start and Early Head Start parameters currently use FY 2022-2023 data:

• Enrollment parameters: policyengine_us/parameters/gov/hhs/head_start/*/enrollment.yaml
• Spending parameters: policyengine_us/parameters/gov/hhs/head_start/*/spending.yaml

Current references:

• Head Start Program Facts Fiscal Year 2022
• Head Start Program Facts Fiscal Year 2023

Available Updates

FY 2024 data is available at:
https://headstart.gov/program-data/article/head-start-program-facts-fiscal-year-2024

National totals for FY 2024:

• Total enrollment: 805,919 children and pregnant women (2023-2024 program year)
• Total funding: $12.27 billion (up $275M from FY 2023)
• Includes 2.35% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA)

Data Needed

State-by-state breakdown tables from the FY 2024 fact sheet showing:

1. Early Head Start enrollment by state
2. Early Head Start spending by state
3. Head Start enrollment by state
4. Head Start spending by state

Implementation

Update YAML parameter files with FY 2024 values:

# Add new 2024-09-01 entries for each state
AK:
  2021-09-01: [old value]
  2022-09-01: [old value]
  2024-09-01: [new FY 2024 value]

Update references to include FY 2024 fact sheet.

Challenges

The HeadStart.gov website blocks automated scraping (403 errors on WebFetch), so data extraction needs to be done manually or through other means.

Priority

Medium - FY 2023 data is recent enough for current calculations, but FY 2024 would be more accurate for 2025+ simulations.

Related

• Fix Head Start and Early Head Start variable metadata #6802 - Metadata fixes (already merged)
• Fix Head Start categorical eligibility vectorization bug #6804 - Vectorization fix (merged)
• Ongoing work on Head Start/EHS takeup modeling in PR Make country package purely deterministic - read stochastic variables from dataset #6635