The stakes are high: if New Jersey doesn’t provide free public preschool to all poor children, then it has violated its spanking new School Funding Reform Act (see this press release from the Education Law Center for background). Failure to do so neatly sets up a trajectory for a return to Abbott v. Burke, which has failed to provide an equitable education to all low-income children, as well as most of the children who reside within the 31 specially-designated urban districts.

Conceptually, S.F.R.A. is great: provide a thorough and efficient education for each child by allocating money dependent on need and irregardless of zip code. Ergo, Abbott is rendered obsolete. But here’s the stumbling block: we don’t have the cash. Commissioner Lucille Davy’s comment, “when the economy changes, preschool will be at the top of the list, I’m sure,” will probably not satisfy the Justices or the Abbott advocates.

We’re back where we started, at least in regards to preschools. If you live in an Abbott district, you get free preschool. If you don’t and you’re poor, then you’re out of luck, which is exactly the scenario S.F.R.A. was meant to remedy.

So, why can’t provide preschool to all kids who need it? The answer is simple: money. N.J.’s educational infrastructure is profligate and inefficient, resulting in the highest cost per pupil in the country, whether you’re talking preschool or high school. Here’s some preschool data. The National Institute For Early Education Research lists per pupil spending for each of the 37 states that offer public preschool. The average across the states is $5149 per child, based on 2007-2008 spending patterns. New Jersey? $10,989 per child, more than double the average. No wonder we can’t pay for it.

(By the way, we’re not just comparing N.J. to the Ozarks. For more geographically akin costs, New York spends $3,948 per kid, Delaware spends $6,795 a kid, Pennsylvania spends $6,252 a kid.)

Why do we spend so much? Because our hypothetical preschool expansion in Corzine’s original budget called for each of our 600 or so school districts to independently create preschool facilities, hire preschool directors and staff, write curricula, oversee transportation, install those tiny toilets (really: it’s mandated) – all the different elements involved in a public preschool. A small, middle-class district might have 10 3- and 4-year-olds who might meet eligibility requirements,. A larger, poorer (non-Abbott) district might have 100. Even if these two school districts were next door to each other, they’d each be responsible for their own programs. In fact, Corzine’s initial allocation for preschool was over $12,000 per child so that districts could cover the costs.

Here’s another way to abide by S.F.R.A. and still control costs: create county-wide preschools. Remember, each of our 21 counties already has an Executive Superintendent and a Business Administrator. Each of our counties has large, often underused facilities, some practically posh, for special education kids. Each county has transportation facilities. Why don’t we use the resources we have for preschool education? Here’s another benefit: New Jersey has one the most segregated school districts in the country. Pooling our preschoolers within one county would allow for a degree of desegregation that our current system doesn’t offer.

(Alternatively, we could delegate state-wide preschool programming to KIPP or another charter organization with a proven success record. [It would be cheaper — mainly because the staff would be non-NJEA.] If we handed off a few counties, we’d have our own clinical trial with a control group, which might garner some hefty grant money.)

Corzine’s plan for creating more efficiency is the now-loathed district consolidation, a concept that appears to be going nowhere fast; some Executive County Superintendents are even suggesting that putting proposals on the ballot is an exercise in futility. However, county-wide preschools give home rule diehards a little taste of regionalization, just enough to tease out the educational and financial benefits. Some sort of consolidation is our only hope for a less expensive public education system and more efficient governance of a municipally-manic state. Taking a baby step with preschools would start the journey.