A Closer Look at Delaware’s Education Budget: Challenges and Solutions

By: Jane Brady, Chair, A Better Delaware

It’s a popular argument that education funding in Delaware is “broken.” Our average annual spending per student is among the highest in the country while our student performance is well at the bottom. The data are scattered and not in a readily comparable format, but there is a bill in the General Assembly to make the information more accessible on the Department of Education’s website. We also need to be more transparent about the actual money spent and where it is going.

For those who claim that funding is not going to the neediest students, in terms of learning performance, that is not true. According to the Delaware Department of Education website, spending per pupil in Delaware, on average, is a little over $21,000.00. But, as the Caesar Rodney Institute has published, in some of the schools with the weakest student performance, the expenditure is over $30,000.00 per student. We are moving money to the students assessed to need more instruction. But we do them no service if we do not produce results for them and their futures.

Teachers, educational support service workers and administrators do not come to work in the morning looking to create inefficiencies or cause poor student performance. It is not the goodwill or the effort of teachers, parents and students that is lacking. It is a lack of leadership and of specific objectives and outputs that is hampering results.

We suffer from a teacher shortage. That may be, in part, as a result of our pay scale, as many in state government seem to think.  But an overriding issue relates to discipline and safety.  When asked by their union, of all the issues teachers have identified as concerning and affecting their ability to teach, those two concerns are among the most significant cited.  We need to address the policies that displace entire classes when one student acts out, and which have resulted in physical altercations, not only between students, but also between students and teachers and other staff.

Heritage Foundation did a study which measured aspects of education and policy in all 50 states. Once again, Delaware ranked in the bottom (47) overall. But Heritage also evaluated “teacher freedom” – the ability to move into and around within the Delaware teaching community.  Delaware ranked dead last, at 51 (the District of Columbia was included).  Heritage suggested Delaware consider adopting policy changes that allow teachers alternative routes into the classroom (other than university degrees in education), expanding reciprocity of teacher licenses between states and reducing obstacles to qualification to teach in Delaware, giving the hiring of teaching staff over non-teaching staff priority and making the decision to revise or eliminate our alignment with the Common Core standards.  All of these actions can help alleviate the teacher shortage and improve teacher morale, and do not cost a lot of money. Some cost none.

That is important because public education funding makes up a third of Delaware’s state operating budget and is now the largest spending category for the First State, totaling 36% of operating appropriations at over $2 billion.

The Delaware Department of Education was awarded $2.16 billion for the current fiscal year and is now requesting additional funds of nearly $200 million, largely to support personnel salaries, enrollment growth and positions for school mental health professionals. Yet, a recent Pew study suggested that we are going to see student enrollment go down, and indeed, there are ample examples of near-empty schools and classrooms in our current facilities.

There is a new interest in government spending spreading across the country.  Citizens are making unprecedented inquiries into how much of their money the government is spending and what the government is spending it on. Given the low rate of return on our consistent high spending on education with very poor student performance results, everyone, not just parents of children in school, but every taxpayer, should demand that the state adopt policies that will improve education outputs, not just throw more money at the problem.

Candidly, it is hard to say no to giving more money to try and help our children gain the skills they need to succeed. Political pressures are significant. So, get involved! Let your legislator know that you will support them if they insist on better policies, not more money.  Advocate for more parental authority over education choice, better flexibility for educators to teach in Delaware, and objectives and targets that reflect real effort to reach specific goals in student performance.

Jane Brady serves as Chair of A Better Delaware. She previously served as Attorney General of Delaware and as a Judge of the Delaware Superior Court.