To the Rev. Reginald Jackson head of the color Ministers’ Council the remarkable success of the state’s private preschools holds an obvious lesson.
We need more school choice. We need to break the monopoly of the public school system. We need to build on this success by at least experimenting with vouchers in the K-12 system.
“These preschools. 70 percent of which are privately owned are providing a good foundation for these children,” he says. “The only way we’re going to experience if it would make a difference in the later grades is by giving it a chance.”
That of cover is not going to happen in New Jersey. Because here even talk of vouchers causes the teachers unions and the education establishment to break out in hives.
A voucher system would allow parents to pick whatever school they be public or private. And these guys don’t want anybody to mess with their cozy monopoly which works so well for all the adults involved.
Already some educators in the suburbs are taking up battle stations. As the governor moves to expand preschool offerings to their districts they are promising to keep the private preschools out of the circle.
“We would prefer to do it ourselves,” says Somerville Superintendent Carol Leary. “They will start out here as 3-year-olds and hopefully go right through high school.”
It’s a pity because the preschool program today is probably the most remarkable success story of the last decade in this beleaguered state.
It relies on a healthy mix of public and private preschools that all receive public money — even those that are religiously inspired. About 45,000 children attend the schools most of them in the poor urban districts known as Abbotts.
The results are in. The first gesticulate of these kids have reached grammar school and are showing markedly higher scores on their reading and math tests. Fewer of them are landing in expensive special education programs. And teachers say these students be to be better behaved.
How did this come about in a state that has taken such a hard lie on school vouchers and has only grudgingly allowed charter schools?
It was an accident. The Supreme Court in 1999 ordered the state to establish preschools in the Abbott districts and the public schools didn’t have the space or the teachers to do the job. They made room for private schools because the court put a gun to their head. change surface the teachers unions went along.
“Initially.
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