When it comes to Delaware’s school funding formula, classroom educators tend to agree with the conclusions drawn by the American Institutes of Research (AIR) last year: that it is inadequate, it negatively impacts student outcomes, and lacks transparency.  

Seven members of the Rodel Educator Network came together in 2024 to learn about the landscape of school funding, advocacy, and how educators can be involved in policy change. After several months of learning about the landscape of school funding policy in Delaware they developed a survey, which ran from late April of 2024 to mid-June of 2024, to hear from other fellow educators on their thoughts, needs, and opinions on how well the K-12 funding formula is serving their students. 

Click here to explore the full survey and research results. 

Of the over 50 respondents from across the state, a majority (88 percent) said funding inequity negatively impacts student outcomes, over half say that funding is either inadequate or very inadequate (62 percent), that the current formula does not adequately support student needs (58 percent), and that the funding formula is not transparent (56 percent). 

Educators are an essential part of the conversation around school funding, as educators are the closest to students and are uniquely able to identify the needs of our students across the state. Their policy recommendations of having fair distribution of funding, and increased overall funding demonstrated alignment with AIR report’s recommendations of increasing investments in Delaware’s public education, distributing more resources according to student needs, and improving funding transparency. One survey respondent notes, “There is no transparency and no one on the school level has access to that information…Transparency means letting the people that the distribution affects have access to that information.” 

As part of the analysis undertaken by AIR, a research firm based in Arlington, Va.,  “professional judgement panels” were assembled with those with the most knowledge of this system, like classroom teachers, principals, and other district- and school-level employees, to develop recommendations of what it would take to adequately educate every child. As one respondent says, “Talk to [educators]; include them in meetings. Find out where the deficits are and try to address them systemically.” 

The educators urge other educators and administrators to advocate by giving public comments at meetings and in testimony, participating in working groups and committees, and educating others about the issue, among others, “Every group that works on these decisions should have as many educators as non-educators…legislators need to hear from actual teachers in Legislative Hall when they are voting on budget allocations.” 

The group also learned about and highlighted some of the ways educators can get involved in advocacy—not only for school funding, but across any topics that are important to them. 

This survey results come at a time when Delaware’s Public Education Funding Commission (PEFC) comprised of legislators, experts, and community members will build on the recommendations and financial models from the Assessment of Delaware Public School Funding and the recommendations of the Vision Coalition. Tune into the third PEFC meeting in its series, happening on November 18.  

Delaware’s longstanding quest for a more student-centered, equitable school funding system marches on. Following the release of an independent assessment of Delaware’s school funding system conducted by American Institutes for Research (AIR), the state Senate and House of Representatives education committees held a joint legislative briefing in March to dig deeper into the issue.

This month, legislators took the next step toward modernizing school funding by establishing a commission of stakeholders to draft the roadmap forward. (As we’ve written, these actions stem from the settlement of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Delaware and Delawareans for Educational Opportunity in 2020.) Here’s what we know about SCR 201.

What is the Public Education Funding Commission?

The new commission will bring together legislators, educators, and community members to discuss the AIR report recommendations, learn from experts, and create a roadmap for how best to implement the recommendations in a hybrid form specific to Delaware’s context. The roadmap will be created in 2025.

The commission is charged with reviewing the AIR recommendations and putting forward improvements to Delaware’s system to make it more student-based, equitable, and flexible to meet student needs. The commission is also charged with reviewing current Delaware laws and regulations to address disparities and consistency of allocation processes, and with making recommendations to the referendum process, ensuring it aligns with effort underway to update the state equalization formula.

The recommendations must ensure that no district loses funding in the effort; recent updates to teacher compensation are maintained; and stability and predictability are maintained. The commission must also hear from parents, educators and community, as well as national experts to inform their recommendations

The commission will hold their first meeting by October 1 of this year and deliver their recommendations by October of 2025.

The formation of this commission follows the recommendations of the Vision Coalition, which encouraged legislators to engage a broad range of stakeholders, look systemically, and focus on equity.

Why Another Commission? Four Reasons Why This One is Different

While a commission may not seem like the most exciting sign of progress (historically, Delaware has seen many such committees, commissions, and reports come and go without making much of a dent), the state is poised to act thanks to robust community momentum—and specific adequacy goals stated in the AIR report.

1. Delaware will elect a new governor this November, and many of the leading candidates to replace Gov. John Carney are on the record showing support for school funding reform. There is clearly an appetite for wide-scale change.

2. With a set of strong recommendations to work from and close collaboration with national experts who have guided other states through such efforts—Delaware will have all the ingredients it needs to design a Delaware-centric solution to a complex equity issue.
3. Recently, we’ve seen similar commissions get the job done. Just last year, the Public Education Compensation Committee (or PECC, created by Senate Bill 100 of the 151st General Assembly) recommended an enhanced compensation structure for school staff, which Gov. Carney included in his FY25 draft budget.
4. Transformative legislation requires legislative champions. In Delaware, strong leadership exists in both chambers—as evident from the legislative briefing held in March.

Stay tuned as we monitor the passage of this resolution, appointment of commission members, and first commission meeting.

Learning from Other States

What can Delaware learn from other states that have undergone—or are in the midst of—a similar process? Here are just a few recent examples, along with the key components of their success.

The New Hampshire Commission to Study School Funding

• Advocates in New Hampshire aligned strong champions—both within the community with inside the legislature.
• Led by the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, a strong and broad public engagement gameplan included public town halls and large-scale public surveys.
• Like Delaware, New Hampshire enlisted AIR to provide recommendations, financial data models, and other supports. Delaware is ahead in comparison since we already have the study done – but we still need work with phasing in and other aspects.

Massachusetts

• In Massachusetts, local legislators have leaned into the issue, prioritizing it with strong political presence and support.
• In the meantime, lawmakers in Massachusetts have also committed to updating the extra funding levels (or “weights”) it provides for low-income, special education, or multilingual students—a smaller and more specific charge.

Kirwan Commission (Maryland)

• A bipartisan effort led by advocates and the Maryland General Assembly, the Kirwan Commission is charged with broad education reform that covers almost all aspects of public education—including funding. Its policy recommendations are still in the implementation phase.
• The Kirwan commission was able to navigate the challenges of focusing on student needs while maintaining teacher salaries at a high level.
• This commission dealt with significant opposition from the governor, but advocacy efforts won over the legislature and led to successful passage.

As national observers and researchers like Bellwether Education Partners have pointed out, states have looked to the above critical ingredients (strong political champions, research, and coalitions of vocal advocates), along with game-changing litigation, as necessities for change.

What Else is Happening in Delaware in School Finance?

Property value reassessment continues to unfold through the three counties, and some results have already come in: Kent County results were released earlier this winter, while New Castle and Sussex counties are expected in 2025. Delaware property taxes contribute to local school funding, so increases here will have significant ripple effects as soon as next year’s budget.

On a parallel track, Delaware is looking to revamp its equalization formula, or the process of allocating state resources to districts inversely on their ability to raise revenues through their local property tax base. Equalization ensures that each district has the same level of resources with which to educate each student. The state will soon engage with a consulting group to jumpstart the process.

On March 7, the state Senate and House of Representatives combined education committees held a joint legislative briefing to dig into the independent assessment of Delaware’s school funding system conducted by American Institutes for Research (AIR).

The AIR assessment, which was released in December and highlighted several areas of improvement for Delaware’s funding formula (read our recap here), served as the backdrop to a conversation that saw local and national experts field questions from local lawmakers. Speakers included Drew Atchison, a senior researcher at AIR, Bruce Baker, a professor and chair of the department of teaching and learning at the University of Miami, and Kenneth Shores, an assistant professor specializing in education policy in the School of Education at the University of Delaware.

Here are five top takeaways from the briefing.

1. Delaware’s current system is inflexible and needs recalibration to better serve student needs.

Experts and lawmakers discussed ways to increase flexibility and transparency of the current funding formula. As the AIR assessment points out:

Increasing transparency and flexibility would allow schools and school leaders to better respond to their own school population’s needs and would bring more advocates to the table including communities and students.

Another key recommendation is to distribute more resources according to student need. From the assessment:

Compared to neighboring states, Delaware has higher rates of multilingual learners and low-income students. Yet the state doesn’t distribute resources in a targeted way towards those populations.

Ensuring we are distributing resources more equitably will allow schools and districts to target funding to our populations with the highest needs and provide the necessary supports for these students.

2. Delaware’s funding formula is atypical—and not in a good way.

Delaware’s funding formula is unique in several ways.

We are one of six states that still use a resource based formula, in which funding is distributed by the staffing “unit” based on a school’s enrollment. But even within that umbrella, we are atypical.

Delaware’s state funding formula exists largely independently of local capacity, which leads to significant inequity at the local level and for taxpayers. A lot can be improved simply by fixing how Delaware allocates revenues. Delaware is the only state in the nation that does not redistribute state funding to offset inequities at the local level. Equalization is the portion of the formula that is intended to redistribute state revenues to offset local capacity, and the state is looking to re-evaluate this formula and make updates.

Most states set an allowable limit that districts can raise locally each year, leaving Delaware as the only state that requires districts to go to referendum for almost every needed increase to local revenue.

The below graph shows local revenues on the left, and state revenues on the right. In most states, state revenues make up for the fact that local revenues mostly go to non-low-income children by targeting funds at low income children. Per Dr. Kenneth Shores:

3. All districts would see increased funding with a new formula.

The report recommended a funding base and additional weights for a student-centered or “foundation” formula for Delaware to adopt. Along with this new formula and investment level (anywhere from $590 million to $1 billion total), every district would see increases in funding and increased flexibility with that funding.

4. Where and how much money makes a difference: Research concludes more money matters.

Drs. Baker and Shores both shared decades of research that demonstrates that when schools and districts receive additional funds, they use them for evidence-based practices that benefit students. That includes increased staffing, investing in high-quality staff and professional development, and smaller class sizes.

These investments are demonstrably tied to improvements in outcomes including:

• Increases in test scores
• Increases in NAEP scores
• Improved graduation rates
• Lowered suspension rates
• Higher teacher retention rates

5. Change is possible—and Delaware is in the minority of states that have not made major change in the last three decades.

Thirty-eight states, spanning the political spectrum, have recently made changes to increase funding in their funding formulas and have found ways to fund the increased investment.

These methods include increases to property taxes, sales tax, implementing a statewide property tax, income tax or other solutions. While tax increases are never politically popular, none of these solutions involve taking revenue from other areas like health care, transportation, or other investments.

On average, these states increased investments at the rate of $1,000 per student per year, and made plans to sustain these investments. Currently Delaware is increasing investments at the rate of $1,000 per student every 10 years.

As we wrote last month, Delaware is positioned at a unique crossroad with its school funding system. Long in need of updates, the topic has gained significant renewed attention and interest in the wake of the independent assessment conducted by American Institutes for Research (AIR).

Meanwhile, state officials have consistently done more than is required by the high-stakes lawsuit that settled several years ago, and the community has become increasingly engaged in the conversation on how to best serve our students.

Legislative Interest

Last legislative session, lawmakers enacted key pieces of legislation and budget decisions to push the state toward streamlining and modernizing the way it funds its public schools.

Updating Delaware’s property values emerged as a key component in the lawsuit. Local property tax is a critical part of any school district’s budget, and prior to the lawsuit, home values hadn’t been updated in decades. HB 62, signed into law in August 2023, implements rolling property reassessment every five years, ensuring schools will receive the most accurate amounts of local funding.

HS 1 for HB 33, which aligns special education pre-school “unit count” funding ratios to those in K-12, was also passed, bringing Delaware closer to providing its youngest learners with the services they need.

The Public Education Compensation Committee (PECC), established by SB 100 in 2022, presented its recommendations to a joint House and Senate education committee on January 11. These recommendations include increasing teacher salaries over four years to reach a $60,000 base salary, and increases for administrators, secretaries, custodians, food service employees, paraprofessionals, bus drivers and IT employees.

As the News Journal reported, Governor John Carney’s annual recommended budget closely aligned to PECC’s recommendations.

Gov. Carney’s Opportunity Funding—a version of weighted student funding that funnels extra money to schools based on their population of low-income and multilingual learners—has continued to increase, even above the required amount by the lawsuit. Currently, the bucket of Opportunity Funding sits at $53 million, $3 million above the required amount. For fiscal year 2025, the required amount raises to $60 million.

Coalition Efforts

The Vision Coalition of Delaware hosted a series of events throughout the last year, bringing the community together to engage in learning and conversation about Equity in Education with national and local experts.

Throughout the series, attendees learned about not only how Delaware’s funding system works, but how it compares to other states.

National education experts underscored the research-backed notion that money truly does matter in education funding, especially when additional funds are targeted to address student needs. Increased funding is shown to significantly impact student outcomes in the classroom and in other areas including lifetime earnings, years of education, and other metrics.

Not only does the amount of money matter, but how money is distributed matters as well. Local educators Margie Lopez Waite (CEO of Las Américas ASPIRA Academy) and Dorrell Green (superintendent of Red Clay Consolidated School District) shared that Opportunity Funding has been essential to getting more targeted funds to students with higher needs, including multilingual learners and students from low-income backgrounds. Most of these funds have been invested in additional support staff, out of school and wrap around programming and additional learning time, which are all supported by strong evidence.

The Vision Coalition also co-hosted a session with the Department of Education to release the funding assessment from the American Institutes of Research. To learn more about the details of the report, read our recent blog here.

Teacher Pay and Local Revenue

Teacher pay is another central component to school funding, and the combined efforts of Gov. Carney, the General Assembly, and the Public Education Compensation Committee will lead to salary increases over the next several years.

Several states have maintained robust salary schedules for teachers alongside a student-based funding formula.

Concerns about Local Share

A large part of education funding is acquired through local share, roughly 28 percent. As operating costs continue to grow, there are concerns about being able to keep up without districts having to go to referendum. Other states do not rely on referendum the way we do and allow districts to levy taxes as needed to meet target funding numbers, only requiring referendum to raise funds above that amount.

Moving Forward

While advocates will continue to learn and explore ways to modernize Delaware’s funding formula through events and engagements, formal action can’t happen without lawmakers leading the way.

On March 4, Delawareans for Educational Opportunity and ACLU Delaware will co-host a discussion on the AIR report and potential next steps.

On March 7, the state Senate and House of Representatives combined education committees will hold a joint legislative briefing to dig into the AIR report and its recommendations. Community members and advocates are encouraged to join the discussion and share their thoughts with their legislators and candidates for office.

Property value reassessment continues to unfold through the three counties, and the results are starting to come in: Kent County results were released earlier this month, while New Castle and Sussex counties are expected in 2025.