The Education Law Center, the primary advocates for students in our 31 poor urban Abbott districts, announced yesterday that the NJ DOE has revised the way it calculates the number of children eligible for preschool and “lopped” 6,891 children off the preschool rosters. The action, according to ELC, was “taken without notice or opportunity for public input.” How’d the DOE do it despite laws mandating that Abbott districts have to enroll 90% of eligible 3 and 4 year-olds? The DOE decided not to count children enrolled in private and parochial preschools so that “numerous districts that had for years been below the 90% goal suddenly found themselves in compliance.”

The Star-Ledger reports that among the newly ineligible kids 1/5 of them are from Newark where 1,632 received free preschool in 2008 but now won’t, and another 2,000 are from Paterson and Jersey City.

Update: The DOE just issued a press release entitled “DOE Response to ELC Preschool Release.” It begins,

The Education Law Center’s claims that almost 7,000 children in former Abbott districts are no longer eligible for preschool are “incorrect andmisleading, and have created a great deal of confusion in the preschool community,” Education Commissioner Lucille E. Davy said today.

The point seems to be that, according to the DOE, the ELC is conflating the way the DOE estimates “the preschool universe” with the actual funding mechanism. He says, she says. Someone’s right and someone’s wrong. Maybe the ELC will put out another press release.