NJ Education Report

The Record reports today that Corzine’s whole preschool expansion plan is “on hold, with no funds for new classes included in next year’s recession-crunched budget.”

Why the fuss? Because the School Funding Reform Act (S.F.R.A.), ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court on Thursday, guarantees full-day preschool to 6,100 poor three and four year-olds who do not live in Abbott districts. But there’s no money, so there’s no preschool. Commissioner Lucille Davy’s limp response — “when the economy changes, preschool will be at the top of the list, I’m sure” — will probably not satisfy the Court.

If there’s no preschool, then the State’s case falls apart about 4 days after Corzine and the D.O.E. won in Supreme Court. S.F.R.A. only works if it’s fully funded. Otherwise it’s just a theoretical algorithm, an elegant, metaphysical calculus. It’s fair and equitable to say that we’ll fund every poor child regardless of zip code. But it’s another step entirely – from the theoretical to the concrete – to actually do it. And the cost of failure is immense: the reversal of the Court’s ruling and the reinstallment of the Abbott funding formula.

David Sciarra of Education Law Center is right on top of it, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday,

If the Legislature were to adopt the budget that’s before them today, it will violate the court’s ruling. We’re not going to sit back and let them have a formula that’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.

The Justices’s decision on Thursday included a proviso that the Education Law Center can go back to court and argue that S.F.R.A. is inadequate. Not funding it from the get-go would seem to fall under that category.

There’s another political layer here, which is the current Republican primary. Both Christie and Lonegan argue that expanding preschools – indeed, even offering them in the first place – is fiscally irresponsible. The Record notes,

New Jersey’s new full-day programs are to be modeled after the Abbott classes, with certified teachers following an established academic curriculum in local schools or privately run day-care centers. They will also be as expensive as Abbott preschool: The state has pledged to pay between $7,146 and $12,934 per child, depending on location. New Jersey currently spends the most per preschooler in the nation — $10,989 on average in 2008, according to Rutgers’ National Institute of Early Education Research.

In the end, we’re left with an empty success for Corzine because New Jersey can not afford to expand the services offered to Abbott districts to other equally poor children. So do we go back to the original equity plan and only offer the extras to the 31 designated urban areas after the D.O.E. has convincingly argued that this cheats other poor kids? Do we finally acknowledge that New Jersey cannot afford to maintain its public school system under the current paradigm and that the only solution is a vast overhaul, including consolidation, loosening of charter school restrictions, and taking on NJEA?