New Jersey Tops Nation in Preschool Funding

New Jersey Tops Nation in Preschool Funding

New Jersey leads the nation in funding preschool programs, according to a recent report by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER).

The report, The State of Preschool 2007, ranked states on the percentage of children served by preschool over the past school year, the spending per child, and the number of benchmarks of quality that each state met.

New Jersey’s expenditures of $10,494 per child ranked highest in the nation. Average state spending was pegged at $3,642 per child, which signified a change in the trend of declining per-child spending that had continued since 2002-2003.

The Garden State ranked 13th for enrolling a quarter of 4 year olds in preschool, and third for providing pre-K to 15 percent of its 3 year olds, according to the New Brunswick-based NIEER.

Public preschool is unavailable to most 3- and 4-year-old children.

Middle Income Issue Affluent families can afford expensive private preschools, while federal Head Start programs and most state-funded preschool is targeted at lower income families, according to NIEER.

“The children left out are disproportionately from middle-income families that can’t afford private schools,” said W. Steven Barnett, NIEER’s executive director. “Failing to provide high-quality early education opportunities for these children compromises their ability to succeed in school and in life and has grave consequences for our society and economy.

“States must decide whether education of young children will continue to be a welfare program for the poor or an essential investment in all Americans,” he said.

Earlier this year, when New Jersey Education Commissioner Lucille E. Davy discussed the School Funding Reform Act of 2008, the state’s new funding formula, she also announced plans to expand preschool throughout the state.

Although the preschool plans are not codified in law, the commissioner’s goal is to expand pre-K programs to low income non-Abbott districts that are designated by a District Factor Grouping (DFG) of A and B, and expand preschool to districts designated as CD and which have at least 40 percent students below the poverty line. All other districts would be required to provide preschool for all students below the poverty line. The goal is to reach 80 percent of the eligible children within six years.