An Open Letter to Governor Meyer: Money Isn’t the Answer
By Tanya Hettler, PhD
Center for Education Policy
February 13, 2025
I have carefully read your education plan for Delaware multiple times. There are several aspects of your plan that I think would be extremely beneficial in improving Delaware public education.
These include:
- improving transparency in spending,
- improving the quality of professional development (especially in Science of Reading),
- allowing excellent teachers to take on more challenging assignments and mentor new teachers to increase their pay,
- and providing greater support to teachers in order to decrease classroom disruptions.
However I disagree with your recommendation to increase education spending by $3,400 to $6,400 per pupil as was recommended in the American Institute for Research study. Delaware does not need to increase education spending.
Including federal spending, Delaware currently spends $21,641 annually per student which is in the top 10 states for spending. And yet Delaware is in the bottom ten out of all 50 states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
I want to share several reasons why I do not think more spending will solve Delaware’s education problems below:
1. Increased spending is not improving performance outcomes
There is a negative correlation between spending and performance outcomes in Delaware’s public schools. Our worst performing schools - those in which less than one in 10 students can read or do math at grade level - often spend twice as much as our best performing schools. Some of the poorest performing schools in the state spend over $33,000 per student.
Additionally, as can be seen in the following graph, over the past 20 years Delaware’s per pupil spending continues to increase each year while educational outcomes continue to decrease.
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2. Delaware is not really that different from neighboring states
You stated in your education plan that in comparison to our neighboring states Delaware has the “lowest neighborhood income levels and highest percentages of English Language Learners and students living in poverty.”
According to World Population Review however, while Delaware’s average household income is less than NJ, MD or VA, it is higher than PA’s.
And Delaware’s percentage of English Language Learners is 11.5 percent, little different than MD’s at 11.2 or DC’s at 11.3.
3. Teacher salaries have already been raised
You recommended increasing teacher compensation. However, in 2023 teacher salaries were increased 2%, plus a $1875 stipend for each of the following four years until the starting teacher salary reaches $60,000 in 2027-28. Governor Carney then raised teacher salaries another 9% in fiscal year 2024 and then included $45.2 million for increasing public educator salaries in the recommended budget for 2025.
Yet according to the National Education Association, the average annual salary for an educator in Delaware in 2020-2021 was already $65,141 ranking us 16th in the nation.
4. Improve transparency
I agree with your goal of greater transparency in education. The budgets of the various school districts are often very nebulous. A common spending category is “support services” which includes anything from secretaries to administrators.
A weighted funding model would make education spending much clearer and allow us to more easily evaluate how various spending strategies impact outcomes.
5. Improve accountability
Currently Delaware’s data on school performance are very difficult to access. Providing an easily accessible link on the Delaware Department of Education homepage to school profiles would improve accountability and expectations. As long as it is hard to evaluate how schools and districts are performing, there will be little improvement.
Conclusion
All of the above information shows that simply increasing Delaware education spending has not and will not improve Delaware’s students' outcomes. Instead specific, concrete and measurable steps to improve accountability and transparency need to be taken to improve our states’ education system. Doing so may require a declaration of an education emergency to bring about the needed changes in Delaware’s schools. In addition to the topics addressed above, some changes that would help improve education in Delaware include accelerating the implementation of the Science of Reading and, as indicated in your education plan, providing better professional learning on this topic as well as others, allowing teachers to earn extra pay for excellent work, and providing greater support to teachers in order to decrease classroom disruptions.