that being born prematurely is simply hurtful to a childs over-         all well-being. It may also be that low birthweight is a strong fore- caster of poor parenting, since a mother who smokes or drinks or oth- erwise mistreats her baby in utero isnt likely to turn things around just because the baby is born. A low-birthweight child, in turn, is more likely to be a poor child-and, therefore, more likely to attend Head Start, the federal preschool program. But according to the ECLS data, Head Start does nothing for a childs future test scores. Despite a deep reservoir of appreciation for Head Start (one of this books authors was a charter student), we must acknowledge that it has repeatedly been proven ineffectual. Heres a likely reason: instead of spending the day with his own undereducated, overworked mother, the typical Head Start child spends the day with someone elses undereducated, overworked mother. (And a whole roomful of similarly needy children.) As it happens, fewer than 30 percent of Head Start teachers have even a bachelors degree. And the job pays so poorly-about $21,000 for a Head Start teacher versus $40,000 for the average public-school kindergarten teacher-that it is unlikely to attract better teachers any time soon.     Matters: The childs parents speak English in the home. Doesnt: The childs parents regularly take him to museums.     A child with English-speaking parents does better in school than one whose parents dont speak English. Again, not much of a surprise. This correlation is further supported by the performance of Hispanic students in the ECLS study. As a group, Hispanic students test poorly; they are also disproportionately likely to have non-English-