Preschool plan: Time for recess

ASBURY PARK PRESS EDITORIAL

To comply with a state mandate to provide full-day preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, starting with a partial phase-in next fall and full implementation by 2013, Berkeley school officials said last week they will hold a lottery to determine which of some 480 eligible children will fill the 67 inaugural slots.

It's a misguided mandate that's far too extravagant for these financially troubled times. Any expansion of the program beyond the state's poorest school districts, where free preschool has been available for years, should be suspended before Berkeley and other districts are forced to expend any more time and money trying to figure out how to educate, house and transport the children.

Berkeley is among 87 school districts in the Education Department's "B" socioeconomic grouping that are under orders to provide free, full-day preschool. While there have been recent indications the department may be rethinking its mandate, it should definitively state the $330 million expansion of the program will be put on hold.

If Berkeley is required to meet the state's start-up requirements for next fall, it will have to accommodate eight preschool classes in three schools. There are now two such classes in one school. By 2013, when services for more than 500 preschoolers will have to be provided, a new school will have to be built. Although state funding is supposed to be available, it won't fully offset the costs of the expanded program.

Even in flush times, state education officials shouldn't be asking taxpayers to make an additional commitment of resources without offering incontrovertible proof that full-day preschool for children has academic and social benefits that endure well behind the elementary grades, and without being able to justify why free preschool should be available in some districts and not others.

Expansion of the preschool program should be delayed until the economy rebounds. And plans should be shelved entirely if the state can't make a better case for keeping 3- and 4-year-olds in a classroom all day.