Description:
Since 1999, New Jersey's court-ordered Abbott Preschool Program has provided publicly funded early education services in a combination of private child care centers, Head Start centers, and public schools, and it has sought to place preschool teachers on an equal footing with K-12 teachers in terms of pay and qualifications. CSCCE interviewed 98 private child care and Head Start directors in 2007 to collect their firsthand accounts of implementing this ambitious educational reform, and their suggestions for improving it.
While most directors made suggestions for improving the Abbott Preschool Program, their assessments of the program were overwhelmingly positive, citing increased quality in their centers and impressive gains in the learning and school readiness of the children they served. They noted increased skill and stability among teaching staff, largely due to the program's mandates for higher levels of training, education, and compensation. Finally, most directors praised the quality of the support services they had received from their public school district.