Study finds quality N.J. preschools paying off Kids in 2-year programs fare better in later grades Friday, June 15, 2007 • BY JOHN MOONEY • Star-Ledger Staff While court-ordered funding for the state's poorest districts is under siege, evidence is mounting that one important mandate seems to be working: quality preschool. A report by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University released yesterday found that a sample of more than 2,300 children who attended preschool in the 31 so-called Abbott districts fared significantly better as they moved through kindergarten. While previous smaller-scale studies, anecdotal evidence and rising test scores in lower grades appeared to support such claims, this was the first large-scale, statewide study to draw such a correlation. Led by the former director of the state's early education office, the new study also found those with two years of preschool showed significant benefits over those in it for just a year. "This is the first time we had hard numbers that the benefits (of preschool) extended past when these children entered kindergarten," said Ellen Frede, the institute's co-director and one of the architects of the state's preschool guidelines. The report comes as the Corzine administration and lawmakers are weighing a new plan for funding New Jersey's public schools with an eye toward easing the state's property tax burden. In that politically charged debate, a key target has been billions of dollars in additional state aid that have flowed into urban districts in the past five years under the state Supreme Court's Abbott vs. Burke school equity rulings. Those rulings included a host of mandates, including a requirement of two years of preschool by certified teachers, and have since spurred questions and criticism about whether annual spending as high as $20,000 a child in these districts is justified. The new report by NIEER appears to confirm that, at least in the earliest years, the money has helped buy beneficial programs. Last year, about $507 million was spent on Abbott preschools, which are serving about 41,000 students. The reported gains are not a surprise to Adriennne Sires, an assistant superintendent in West New York schools who did her own study of Abbott preschools in that Hudson County district. She revisited state test scores for about 200 fourth-graders last year who had been in the first classes of Abbott preschool five years earlier. Among them, she said, 92 percent passed in language arts and 98 percent in math. Among those not in preschool, the passing rates were 62 percent and 84 percent, respectively. "To me, it was quite astonishing and rewarding," she said yesterday. "This was hard data ... I went student by student, and it kept showing the advantage." As directed by the court, the preschool programs are provided in public schools and private centers contracting with the districts. More than half of those reviewed in Frede's study were in the private centers. Another key finding in the report was that the quality of class instruction in both the private and public settings had improved since the first rulings nearly a decade ago, with 90 percent of the programs surpassing what was the average measure in 2000. "We can say now that all are of good quality, and we didn't have that in the beginning," Frede said. Gov. Jon Corzine has called early childhood education a top priority and included new funding in his proposed budget for non-Abbott districts to expand, at a minimum, kindergartens into full-day programs. Abbott schools are required to have full-day kindergarten, in addition to the two years of preschool. But the fate of all the Abbott programs -- including the preschools -- has been up for grabs, as Corzine moves to rewrite the state's school funding formula so that money is directed more toward individual student needs and less to those of the districts as a whole. He is seeking, in other words, to have state aid follow poor students regardless of their district, a revolutionary notion that could stand on its head the current system of focusing on 31 poor districts. A spokesman for Corzine insisted, however, that quality programs will remain a priority in the new funding plan, which officials said would be ready by year's end. "What is certain is that the new formula will reflect the importance of early childhood education and will seek to build upon the success of the high-quality preschool programs that are offered in the Abbott districts," said spokesman Brendan Gilfillan. John Mooney may be reached at jmooney@starledger.com or (973) 392-1548. © 2007 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.