Another year, another slew of education bills were discussed and passed the Delaware legislature in 2024. (Photo by Maksym Yemelyanov/Adobe Stock)
With an 8.6% increase in state education funding for fiscal year 2025, which began July 1, the Delaware General Assembly continued its trend of passing legislation specific to the state’s schools.
There were dozens of educational bills passed this legislative year, which concluded June 30.
From college scholarships to improving school climate to establishing a commission to evaluate how schools are funded, it is clear the state is committed to improving the landscape of education through legislation.
“While First State Educate commends the efforts of lawmakers, there remains important work yet to be done,” said Julia Keleher, First State Educate ’s chief strategy and operating officer. “Citizens need to remain engaged, and we encourage parents to proactively engage with their legislators and school board officials to discuss how the bills passed in the 2024 session helped address the specific needs of students in their districts.”
Funding commission
Paul Herdman, president and chief executive officer of Rodel , believes Senate Concurrent Resolution 201 can spark a lot of change moving forward.
Sponsored by Sen. Laura Sturgeon, D-Hockessin and chair of the Senate Education Committee, the legislation establishes the Public Education Funding Commission to evaluate how public schools are funded and make recommendations for improvements to the funding system.
It comes in response to the landmark 200-page American Institutes for Research (AIR) report released in Dec. 2023 that said the state needs to invest $590 million to $1 billion more into education.
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It also found that certain populations, like low-income, special education and English language learning students all are underfunded compared to other states with successful education systems.
After a couple briefings on the report, SCR 201 is the General Assembly’s first attempt to act on school funding with the AIR report in mind.
“SCR 201 really stands out as potentially transformative in the sense that we’ve had this funding system that has largely been in place for 80 years, and we need to have it reflect the individual needs of students much more,” Herdman said.
He said changes to the funding formula are a long-time coming.
“This administration should get credit for investing a lot more in education over time,” he said. “I mean, we can get increases in compensation and all those sorts of things, but you know that one, in terms of being transformational, that one stands out.”
The Public Education Compensation Committee this year also recommended an enhanced salary structure for school staff, from teachers to custodians to bus drivers and everything in between.
The end goal is to put teachers on track to have a $60,000 starting salary by 2028, one year behind the timeline for a $60,000 starting salary in Maryland. All teachers are earning a two percent raise along with a flat $1,875 applied to their annual salaries for the next four years.
The funding commission created by SCR 201 is tasked with developing a roadmap of recommendations to implement improvements to the public education funding system, and serve as an ongoing body to review the funding annually and recommend updates and changes.
It will hold its first meeting by Oct. 1 and issue its first recommendations by Oct. 1, 2025, so the recommendations may be considered for inclusion in the governor’s recommended fiscal year 2027 budget.
Britney Mumford, executive director of DelawareCAN , said she firmly believes that the legislature could have done something stronger to create more immediate change in school funding.
“However, after talks with Representative Williams and with Senator [Laura] Surgeon, this was the right move,” Mumford said. “They are committed to the process and committed to making some real changes. The commission itself seems to be very inclusive and representative of a lot of different groups, but also a lot of different ideas, which is really great.”
The commission will be filled with 31 members – a mix of legislators, school administrators, leaders from the teachers union and state school board association, special education advocates, parent advocates and more.
Teacher development
“Another kind of thread that is more transformational is around the whole grow-your-own teacher strategy, because we’re investing in the Teacher Academy, which is sort of piloted from a range of schools and now as sort of a statewide effort,” Herdman said. “It’s really important because there are several thousand students in those now, and as we look to increase the diversity and the strength of our teacher pipeline, having that group of kids, young people, who reflect the student population, is really important.”
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The Delaware Pathways Teacher Academy program involves students taking either a three or six course career and technical education (CTE) program that prepares students for careers in elementary and secondary education.
Observation opportunities in a variety of age and discipline settings, as well as special needs and non-classroom settings, provide practical experiences while enriching the learning.
Students participate in a long-term placement during their senior year which allows for in-depth experiences in a classroom setting.
The legislature has bolstered the Teacher Academy as well as adding grow-your-own programs and teacher residency programs.
The grow-your-own is structured where a student, typically in high school, gets experience in teaching while in school with an agreement that they will earn a degree and certifications and return to the school or district to teach years later.
“We know that most teachers end up teaching relatively close to home, and that’s been a relatively new effort, and if we tie that to opportunities for apprenticeship, tie that to teacher residencies, which is a longer training model, more in depth, kind of like the medical model, and then marry that to increases in compensation across the board, I think that just bodes well for the industry,” Herdman said.
Childhood literacy
For a few years in a row now, the legislature has continued its effort to improve reading among children – yes, in part to improve the plummeting test scores, which Delaware is one of the lowest in the nation in – but also, to turn the tide of the state, as about 20% of Delaware adults are not literate.
A push for childhood literacy began in 2022 with a bill by Sen. Laura Sturgeon, D-Hockessin, that requires reading instruction to be aligned with the science of reading, a cognitive brain research that shows how students learn to read.
It has six essential components: phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, text comprehension and oral language.
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The second education bill passed this year that Mumford thinks has the potential to be transformative is the latest in a series of bills by Sturgeon aiming to improve literacy rates.
Senate Bill 252 , r equires that the Department of Education perform audits of educator preparation programs to assess compliance with the evidence-based reading instruction requirements, known as the science of reading.
If a program is not compliant with these requirements, the audit findings must specifically identify each area in which the program is not compliant, and the department must require that the program take corrective action for each non-compliant area.
If a program is compliant with all of the science of reading requirements, the department shall award the program a specific distinction.
Under this legislation, the education department will also use these audits to identify how teacher preparation in reading instruction can be improved.
“Legislation provided quality reading instructors, and attached to that, they included $3 million in the governor’s budget to provide reading instructors across the state, and those instructors are for teachers, so to teach teachers the methodology behind the science of reading,” Mumford pointed out. “They’re hopeful that that’s the first $3 million and if it goes well, they’re going to get more in subsequent budgets.”
Looking at other states, the efforts of the Delaware legislature to improve early literacy are proven methods that have worked elsewhere.
Other topics covered in 2024 legislature
Mumford said another bill she was glad to see is Senate Bill 311 , sponsored by Senate President Pro Tempore Dave Sokola, D-Newark, that provides the ability for charter schools to hire the administrators that they deem beneficial to the success of the school’s education program and the needs of students and staff.
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During the legislative hearings, one of the examples discussed was chief financial officers, and how they might not have any certifications or licensures in education, but having a financial background is more conducive to their work than having an education background.
“I think that was really great.” Mumford said. “Charter leaders now have the flexibility that they need, and some of our charter leaders that were under threat of losing their job under the new regulations are now protected, and those students, thousands of students, who are under their leadership, are also protected as well.”
Herdman also pointed to the expansion of the Inspire and SEED scholarship programs, which has helped more than 10,000 students since their inception pay for college.
“There’s also been significant investment in mental health,” he said. “The CDC has pointed out that mental health is a national issue, so I was glad to see that.”
The last area of focus was funding for early childhood education.
Just about 16% of Delawareans ages zero to five have access to publicly-funded, high-quality early care, and an additional $3.4 million has been added to the Early Childhood Assistance Program ( ECAP ), which are models of Delaware’s highest quality preschool, where programs commit to serving unserved and underserved communities through continuous quality improvement processes.
Herman cited the additional $10.4 million added to purchase of care, which essentially reimburses families for childcare costs.
What education groups would like to see
“I think there was a missed opportunity to advance legislation that focuses on student outcomes, investments, curriculum,” Keleher said.
There was a bill on school safety that would require all new school buildings to have ballistic glass at the entryways, but Keleher would like to see more in that area.
“There’s more opportunity, as we’ve seen in other states, where the states take more of a leadership role in setting expectations and responses, when schools fail to meet and demonstrate that the majority of students are benefiting from what’s happening and that outcomes and achievement are on the rise,” she said.
While there were bills requiring children to have vision screenings and free meals for low-income students, Keleher thinks there’s much more that can be done to focus on for some children with unique needs.
Herdman and Mumford agreed that there was more that could be accomplished in terms of curriculum.
“I think the question is, how much should the legislature get involved in curricula?” Herdman said. “It’s a strategic sort of discussion about, how much should the legislature largely set the big picture, you know, the standards and the funding, but then the school districts and the charter schools to drive more the curriculum.”
Mumford said the education bills in 2024 were super heavy on the administrative side.
She called the lack of legislation that directly focuses on student impact is “a misstep.”
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