By Erin Delmore
Correspondent
Sweeney and Sen. Joe Vitale say every dollar spent on educating 3- and 4-year-olds comes back seven-fold.
“They’re more successful in school, they’re more likely to go to college, they’re socially more rounded,” Sweeney said.
“They’re less likely to be involved in criminal activity, less likely to have access, or need access, on social programs,” Vitale said.
The senators visited South Amboy’s Children’s Center for Learning and joined a round table discussion with local officials, teachers and advocates.
New Jersey has long offered full-day, state-funded pre-K to 3- and 4-year-olds in 35 districts. But experts say that still leaves 45,000 kids — nearly half the total in the state — without.
While private and half-day programs work to fill that void, these advocates say the quality — and the funding — varies.
“And it’s inequitable. For instance, you have towns right next to other town, where if you go two blocks, they have a state-funded, high-quality pre-K program. They don’t. Just by a matter of blocks,” said Sam Crane of Pre-K Our Way.
That state-funded pre-K program is a model for the rest of the nation.
“We’ve identified what quality is through having a teacher with a bachelor’s degree, with early childhood training, a small class size, 15 in a class, research-based curriculum,” said Advocates for Children of New Jersey Senior Policy Analyst Cynthia Rice.
Educators say the skills 3- and 4-year-olds learn in pre-K are the building blocks for life.
“Just learning how to share, you know, not everything’s mine, I have friends, we have to take turns, we get in line, everything’s structured, and obviously the children coming in that have never had preschool, they don’t understand structure,” said Lisa Barbarino.
“It’s particularly important for any children that may have developmental delays. If we can catch that early, we can help them compensate, get services for them,” said Mary Jane DiPaolo.
One hundred two additional school districts were promised access to state-funded, full-day pre-K in 2008. The funding got stripped away during the recession.
“Well I think it’s awful. And we had funded that, and the money’s been taken out from several budgets over time in the administration, and we need to reinvest. You can say this about a lot of programs we do here in New Jersey that we provide funding for and how important they are, but what’s more important than giving children an opportunity for a great education,” Vitale said.
The legislation would appropriate $103 million toward implementing the 2008 law, prioritizing districts with the most at-risk pupils. That legislation has been referred to the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee.