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The state of New Jersey will spend $596 million in the coming year on free preschool for 47,000 children as young as 3 in the state's 31 so-called Abbott districts and in about 100 other districts with high poverty levels.

It's not a popular expenditure.

Critics of the state's education spending and the 1999 Abbott v. Burke state Supreme Court ruling that mandated preschool education in the state's poorest school districts call it free "day care" for minorities.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine had planned to spend an additional $25 million to expand the preschool program to more students this year, but the money was cut during budget negotiations - a cut we didn't quibble with then and won't quibble with now. This is the wrong time for an expansion of an already-expensive program.

However ... a new study by the National Institute for Early Education at Rutgers University has just made it clear where Corzine is coming from on preschool.

The study found that Abbott students who attended preschool entered kindergarten significantly ahead of students who did not attend preschool. The advantages were most obvious in vocabulary, basic literacy skills and math, and the advantage lasted through second grade. Furthermore, students who had two years of preschool showed twice the progress of those who had one year. Another finding: The percentage of students who had to repeat a grade was twice as high for those who did not go to preschool.

No, this isn't the year to expand the state's preschool program. This year, many worthy programs had to take hits.

But this study shows why so many education professionals are such strong proponents of early-childhood education. And the study also shows one of the unfortunate consequences of decades of wasteful spending and fiscal mismanagement in Trenton. Preschool works - and New Jersey can't afford to expand it anytime soon. How sad.

2 comments:

• roller137 (269) posts 9:02 am

  The program benefits only those that already enjoy twice the funding of every other school district in the state. This is an election year payoff to loyal urban districts by the Governor. There are thousands of working class families in the suburban areas that struggle to pay their taxes and then have use their own money to educate their kids because they are left out of these types of programs. Unfortunately, they either don't live in the right areas, or don't vote in the right column.

• sandinshoes (27) posts 9:44 am

  On the flip side this study unfortunately shows how little teaching of basic skills is being done at home. Now THAT is sad.

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