Senate President Steve Sweeney and Senator M. Teresa Ruiz condemned the plan by the Republican Congress to slash federal aid for pre-K programs across the country, reductions that would hurt children from low- and moderate-income families in New Jersey.
“In 2014, New Jersey was awarded the federal Preschool Development Grant for $17.5 million to help provide pre-school children the opportunity for early learning,” said Senator Sweeney. “Research and experience shows that early education can have a significant influence on the educational development of students throughout their school years. It is a wise investment in our future.”
Committees in both houses of Congress are considering spending bills that would eliminate the Preschool Development Grant. If these bills get approved, New Jersey would lose millions of dollars. The 17 expansion districts would have to end their preschool programs after two years and 3,658 children would lose out on programs that have been proven to increase a child’s educational readiness.
“Preschool expansion has been a bipartisan effort across the nation and should not be a pawn in ideological agendas,” said Senator Ruiz, who chairs the Senate Education Committee. “The years that a child attends preschool are a time during which significant developments in reasoning, language acquisition, and problem solving occur. Investment in preschool and other high-quality early education programs reduce spending on remedial education, special education, grade repetition in early years, and spending within the criminal justice system in the future.”
New Jersey has one of the highest quality preschool programs in the nation, the senators noted, and our focus as a state and nation must be on expanding programs – not rolling them back. The state provides high quality preschool to almost 52,000 three- and four-year-olds, but many other children that age are not enrolled in a high quality preschool.
“There is no common sense reason to cut this funding. Preschool is one of the smartest investments we can make for the future of our state and nation,” said Senator Sweeney. “We should be building upon the success of pre-k by expanding the programs, not cutting them.”
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