Dr. Rich Noonan, Superintendent of Madison Public Schools, posted a letter last week complaining about the new preschool mandate that all New Jersey districts must provide full day preschools to low-income kids:

Is the State of New Jersey in a position to fund such a costly new endeavor at a time when it cannot meet its present financial obligations, and when housing foreclosures and layoffs are significantly eroding our economic vitality? When concerns over New Jersey’s property tax burden have yet to be fundamentally addressed and alleviated, does it make sense to potentially add to that burden by imposing additional costs at the local taxpayer level?

With all due respect to Dr. Noonan, let’s put his complaint in context. First of all, Madison, in Morris County, is an “I” district, which means that the average income places this district in the second highest category for resident wealth. If the initiative goes through (Corzine’s been sounding a bit iffy on this lately), Madison will have a grand total of 22 kids to serve once the program is fully functional in 2014, far less than most other districts. So we’re talking two or three classrooms for a wealthy district. Dr. Noonan correctly estimates that the State projected aid will cover only 2/3 of Madison’s costs for transportation, curricula, preschool certified teachers, and free breakfast and lunch. However, its outlay is minimal compared with a larger, poorer district that will have to provide many more classes for many more children. We should all have such problems as Madison’s.

Let’s look at the bigger picture. The State and the DOE have passed a number of new initiatives intended to diminish local governance through standardizing curriculum, high school graduation requirements, and budgeting throughout the State. The preschool initiative places the education of low-income 3-5 year olds who don’t live in Abbott districts (they already have full-day preschool) directly back under local control. So Madison sets up its own classrooms, buys its own materials, negotiates its own salary guide, provides its own bussing. So does every one of the 600 districts in New Jersey. Why aren’t we taking advantage of a ripe opportunity to try a little bit of efficient consolidation?

And let’s go a little bigger. The preschool mandate is an acknowledgment on the part of the State, finally, that our impoverished students live not only in the 31 urban Abbott districts but are, in fact, scattered all over the state. This concession may have been cattle-prodded by the Bacon lawsuit working its way through the State courts, which claims that there are 16 rural New Jersey districts just as poor as the Abbotts who should receive comparable State funding. They’re right.

No educator would argue with the importance of providing free preschool to poor children, regardless of where they live. But is such a fractured, economically inefficient, and philosophically inconsistent approach really what we need in New Jersey? County-wide preschools would give us an opportunity to pilot a program that provides consistency, integration, and efficiency. Can we get past our knee-jerk genuflection to home rule and try something new?