In some ways, it's just another ordinary day at the Bloomingdale Family Program's Head Start center on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Children are rolling clay, listening to a story, learning about the roots of a plant. A speech therapist is bent over a tiny table having a one-on-one session with a small charge, while the kitchen staff prepares a hot lunch. And the teachers are busy readying yet another crop of 4-year-olds for the transition to kindergarten.

Yet, to executive director Susan Feingold, things don't feel normal and they don't feel right. In almost 40 years of working with Head Start, "This is the most threatening attack I've ever seen," she says. "The program as we know it is being dismantled."

There's seldom been a moment in its 38-year history when the federal program, devised to better prepare low-income children for school, hasn't been under attack of some kind. Jimmy Carter tried to shuttle it from one department to another during his presidency; Ronald Reagan cut it in half during his.

Fiscal conservatives always railed against it, and governors have never liked the way its funding stream completely passes them by.

But perhaps there's never been a moment quite as troubled as the current one.

Legislation recently introduced by House Republicans, based on recommendations from the Bush administration, suggests large-scale changes for Head Start, which serves almost a million children with a budget of approximately $6 billion.

Perhaps most disconcerting to program advocates is a drive to move Head Start away from concern with a child's many needs - not just academic, but social, emotional, and physical - to a much tighter focus on teaching early reading and math skills. "We would become reading and writing centers and nothing more," Ms. Feingold says.

Currently, the program she administers does teach early literacy and number skills, but also offers art, music, gardening, yoga, play therapy, speech and occupational therapy. It also provides free parenting and English classes for parents. The center ensures that all children receive medical and dental checkups.

Although not all Head Start centers necessarily have offerings as rich as those at Bloomingdale, Head Start supporters say that kind of comprehensive support is required to help children living in poverty prepare for school.

But others disagree.

"It's a good idea to turn Head Start into an explicit cognitive preschool program with emphasis on the word 'school,' as opposed to having children just being looked after and taken to the dentist and being hugged and being fed," says Chester Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in Washington. "I have no objection to the former, but if you want to read in kindergarten and first grade you have to know a lot before you get there."

In its present form, Head Start is "a missed opportunity," Mr. Finn says.

It's hard to take any kind of objective reading of Head Start's success in preparing low-income children for school. Studies done of the long-running program present conflicting results.

Various well-documented studies indicate that children who participate in Head Start demonstrate better reading and math skills, are less likely to fail a grade or need special education, and are more likely to finish school.

Yet other studies have shown either no particular academic benefit to Head Start participation or an early academic "boost" that fades with passing years.

"The program has been around for 30 years and there's no consistent evidence that [Head Start] works," says Krista Kafer, policy analyst for education at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

But at local levels, officials and children's advocates say they've seen Head Start serve their communities effectively.

"Head Start is an incredibly valued program in New York," says Gail Nayowith, executive director of Citizens' Committee for Children of New York. "The research is clear that it works."

Support for Head Start on an anecdotal level has always been strong, with many of the 21 million children it has served - and their families - quick to speak in its defense.

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