Early childhood education in Newark has gotten a big boost from a local philanthropist — Brian Maher, a former shipping executive, and his charitable foundation. He wanted to make education for pre-schoolers more accessible.
“Anybody who can afford to send their children to Pre-K does, anybody who gets it for free does, it’s the people in the middle who can’t afford to send their kids to Pre-K and don’t necessarily have it available to them for free that are left out,” he said.
Maher invested $17 million to build the Clinton Hill Early Learning Center on a site in Newark’s South Ward that was earmarked for a high school that was never built. Almost 200 children from infants to four-year olds go to programs there. They are government-funded and free to families.
“The science is pretty clear that early education is really very important for development and to keep kids in school and get them through high school and keep them out of trouble,” said Maher, “so it’s a really great investment.”
He said the first few years of life are a critical time. “Who decided that public education should start at the age of 6? It really should start much earlier than that,” he said.
Recognizing that nearly 50,000 children in New Jersey lacked access to the state’s high-quality Pre-K programs, Maher’s foundation launched the nonprofit Pre-K Our Way in 2015 to expand Pre-K throughout the state.