Why Should Delaware Care?
Gov. Matt Meyer included the goal of reforming the state’s public education funding formula before July during his “State of the State” address. But that goal has become more unlikely, as the commission tasked with studying Delaware’s public education funding formula did not vote to move forward with its new hybrid framework on Monday.
Plans to reform Delaware’s archaic public education funding system are moving forward – and schools with large numbers of low-income students, such as EastSide Charter School in Wilmington, may benefit the most.
On Monday, the state’s Public Education Funding Commission, which is in charge of recommending how dollars are distributed to Delaware schools, heard a presentation for a school funding model that would increase the state’s contribution to EastSide Charter by $1.2 million, or a 27% jump.
That number does not account for dollars that may come from federal or local sources.
The model, created by a consultant hired by the commission, would also give schools with large numbers of students whose first language is not English, or students with disabilities, big increases in state funding.
Stanton Middle School, which has a high enrollment of English language learners, would receive nearly $1.5 million more under the new model, for a 23% increase.
At the Monday evening meeting, the chair of the Public Education Funding Commission, State Sen. Laura Sturgeon (D-Brandywine Hundred), called the proposal a “Delaware hybrid” funding model – indicating that it incorporated the state’s traditional framework of distributing money on a per-student basis, with one that allocates dollars based on student needs.
Members of the commission were less critical of the funding model than one presented the previous week, which surprisingly had cut funds to at least one school with a large number of English language learners – Ross Elementary in Milford.
In all, the work of the commission follows years of complaints that Delaware school funding was failing students.
In 2018, the ACLU of Delaware filed a lawsuit claiming that Delaware’s education system did not provide adequate schools for “poor, disabled and non-English speaking students,” according to WHYY.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Delaware NAACP and a citizens’ group called Delawareans for Educational Opportunity.
The case settled in 2020, and as part of the settlement the state contracted the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit research organization, to conduct an independent assessment of education funding in Delaware.
In late 2023, the group recommended that Delaware increase spending on public education by upward of $1 billion.
In response, the Delaware legislature created the Public Education Funding Commission.
A missed deadline?
During a late-April meeting of the Public Education Funding Commission, Sturgeon said she hoped the members would vote to recommend a school funding proposal by the next week.
That recommendation would then go to lawmakers, who presumably could then introduce a bill based upon its content.
But, when Sturgeon’s deadline came during Monday’s meeting, no vote occurred. Furthermore, Sturgeon said then that her commission would not have a proposal ready to recommend to lawmakers by the end of the state’s legislative session on June 30.
Gov. Matt Meyer said last month during his “State of the State” address that he wants lawmakers to pass a school funding reform package by June 30.
“We cannot ask our schools to prepare our students for the future with a funding model from the 1940s,” Meyer said during the speech.
In the end, any new legislative resolution about school funding would only impact dollars allocated by the state, and not dollars collected through local property taxes.
Any potential school funding increase from property tax revenue is awaiting a property reassessment process that is ongoing in Delaware’s three counties.
A May 19 meeting of the Public Education Funding Commission has already been cancelled. The next meeting will be hosted June 2 from 4 to 6 p.m. For more information, and a link to attend virtually as the meeting nears, visit here.