Momentum Around School Funding Continues to Grow In Delaware

Delaware continues to work toward a revised school funding formula. A lawsuit settlement in 2020 led to a cascade of actions, including the establishment of the Public Education Funding Commission (PEFC) last June.

What has the Public Education Funding Commission Been Up To?

The Commission met once a month from September to December and was recently re-established through HCR 2 in January with a few minor changes. These changes include:

• Extending the timeline of the commission: Initially, recommendations were due in October of 2025, now a preliminary set of recommendations will be due in October and the final recommendations will be due in July of 2026.
• The addition of a student member of the commission: This student will either be the student representative serving on the State Board of Education or another student selected by the State Board.
• The addition of a representative from an institution of higher education with special interest in school finance issues

Additionally, with the changing administration at the state level, the new Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Brian Maxwell, and the new Secretary of Education, Cindy Marten, will be joining the commission in February.

At their last meeting in December the PEFC heard representatives from district and charter schools explain how our current system works and what their recommended changes would include. District and charter leaders presented on changes that could be made to our current system. They shared that:

• The current system is structurally sound, but the additional demands being put on them through positions that do not get full units has strained the system.
  • Ex: Nurses, drivers ed teachers, and substitutes do not receive the full Division II (operating costs) and Division III (equalization) components and therefore LEAs are not getting the full amount they need to afford the operating cost needs.
• In order to alleviate the pressure and support LEAs, several things would need to be fixed:
  • Unfreeze and update the Equalization Formula
  • Add units for positions that currently do not have units allocated (nurses, substitutes, mental health positions, other related services)
  • Add lower ratios for students from low-income backgrounds and multilingual learners

These recommendations fall more on the side of adjustments to the current unit system rather than switching to a different approach, however at their next meeting on February 10, the commission will hear more potential scenarios including more hybrid options for what our funding formula could look like and how the state could move closer to what was recommended in the assessment of public education produced by AIR last year. This meeting will be in person on February 10 from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Delaware Legislative Hall.

What We Heard at the December 6 Vision Coalition Funding Event

Last December, the Vision Coalition continued the Equity in Education Series started in 2023 with an event inviting the Funding Commission and experts from Maryland, Tennessee, Massachusetts, and others to discuss the lessons they learned from making change in their own state. Some highlights include:

• Providing flexibility and removing the burden of managing 50 checkbooks at the district/charter school level
• Agreement on removing the requirement to go to referendum for basic operating costs
• Learning from other states—like how most states have more equitable funding for student needs
• Change is possible
  • States like Maryland, Tennessee, Massachusetts and others have made these changes through commissions but also through advocacy
• Public engagement, including voices of students, parents, and educators, is very important
• There are a lot of options, and all systems are some form of hybrid

Check out a recording of the event here.

Other News in Funding

The Equalization Committee continues to meet and consider recommendations for updating the formula that has been frozen for over 15 years. The committee heard from the Public Consulting Group (PCG) their preliminary findings in November and will hear some preliminary recommendations in February. PCG’s initial considerations mainly focused on ensuring a more equitable equalization formula and ensuring that it was regularly reviewed and properties are reassessed, to make sure it is working as planned.

The property reassessment process continues, and while all three counties have numbers in, there is still a way to go before these numbers are finalized. Now begins a complex appeals process, wherein individuals can appeal the valuation that was provided. This means that it will likely take more time for these reassessment numbers to be final and affect school property tax rates, projected for fall 2025.

Additionally, legislative action can still impact the outcome of reassessment such as SB 35, which would lower some agricultural valuation and therefore property tax rates, which would impact local education tax collection.

The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) results were released last week, and as expected, scores remain low. Delaware did see improvements in fourth grade math scores but generally remained stagnant in the other grade levels and subjects. Gov. Matt Meyer declared a “literacy emergency” in the aftermath. While most states remained stagnant, a few saw some improvements in scores. Per Education Resource Strategies (ERS), all states saw an increase in funds over the last two years thanks to COVID relief dollars, but the states that saw the most improvements were the states with the most flexible formulas that also regularly assessed whether their investments were making a real difference.

Related Topics: air report, delaware school funding, federal education funding, student success, vision coalition