The record regarding Head Start and community-based programs reveals that in Newark and Paterson and West New York, existing Head Start and other community- based organizations appear quite willing to form a part of the districts' plan to provide early childhood education for all eligible children. In the case of Head Start, the DOE acknowledges the failure to reach a final statewide accord with Head Start, but has not offered any explanation why it could not do so. If the reason was that the non-Abbott- compliant Head Start programs were seeking exorbitant and unnecessary amounts of per-pupil assistance to supplement federal funds and the Department became convinced that these programs were attempting to gouge the districts and the State, then certifications and other documentary evidence in support of these contentions should have been produced. It is true that, as asserted in the Department's brief, to the extent that a Head Start agency cannot maintain Abbott standards at the offered contract rate, the Department need not enter into a contract with that agency. However, that presumes that the rate offered to the Head Start agency was a fair and appropriate rate based upon a reasonable assessment of the actual needs of the program and of the students  it would serve. More broadly, the several allegations that the Department imposed a $4,500 per-pupil rate should have evoked more than a simple denial in the Department's brief that the DOE did not use an estimated amount per child. (See further discussion regarding this subject in the Funding section below.)At oral argument, co-counsel for the DOE noted that, while aware that negotiations had occurred with the Head Start programs, they could not say what actually happened. Of course, except to the extent that they might have been actual participants in the negotiations (they were not), the statements of counsel would not be evidential, but at least might have offered some insight into what happened and why no accord was reached. The Attorney General in fact conceded at oral argument that the record is barren of any evidence as to how the DOE determined the actual needs of the Head Start programs involved, including those of their students. Even more, regarding the contracts with community-based programs addressed in the West, Johnson, Morris- Yamba and Dickey certifications, how the districts decided upon the actual assistance