NPR found Head Start lifts families out of homelessness; the rule deleting that priority takes comments through Tuesday.

…(cont) Kennedy Jr. asking him to scrap the overhaul, which they said would weaken services for thousands of families. They had the department's own title to work from: "Reducing Federal Burden for Head Start Programs." A title is a line item. This one names the account getting the credit. It leaves the other column blank.

Two days after that letter, on September 17, NPR filled the other column in. A woman who got out of homelessness through Head Start, and a finding that the proposal reaches that same help twice — once at the door, changing how a child experiencing homelessness gets in, and once inside, changing the kind of care they receive if they do. That is not a dispute between advocates and the administration. That is the outcomes column arguing with the burden column, hon, in the same ledger, under the same letterhead.

Which brings us to yesterday. The Hill reports the fight has reached a tipping point, with advocates saying the proposals will limit access to a program now serving those 700,000 students, and with interested parties given until Tuesday to tell the federal government what they think.

So here is the reconciliation, and it is not complicated. The thing being removed is not a line of spending. It is an instruction about the order of a line of children. Removing it costs nothing and saves nothing that anyone has published a figure for. The title promises a reduction; the receipts in front of the public this week quantify exactly one thing, which is 700,000 enrolled children and a category among them that stays first in line until Tuesday.

The alternative is now written down. It is available for comment.