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Math and reading assessment scores in Delaware public schools continue to lag behind the national average after the COVID pandemic, worrying some business leaders about the long-term impact. | PHOTO COURTESY OF ABODE STOCK[/caption]
When it comes to business and economic development, there are several common building blocks to how and where projects develop.
Companies want to find affordable land that suits their intended needs, they want to have as advantageous a tax climate as possible, and they want a ready and capable workforce nearby.
But a fourth factor often will become part of the equation: the quality of the local education.
“When companies, particularly science and technology companies, are looking to move to Delaware or expand their operations here, clearly the quality of our schools is an important factor and consideration,” said Michael Fleming, the president of the Delaware BioScience Association, a trade association that represents the local biopharmaceutical industry.
Leaders want to know that future generations of workers will be prepared to take on roles, but they also want to be able to reassure current staff of the quality of life at a site.
That need has led many in the state’s business community to grow increasingly wary of troubling state assessment scores from public and charter schools in the last two years.
What’s in the scores?
The 2023 assessment results published Aug. 8 show that just four in 10 students in grades 3-8 scored at or above their grade’s proficiency level, while only about third did so in mathematics.
Those scores showed a 2-percentage point increase in math scores over last year, but a 2-point decline in English. They are still down considerably from the pre-pandemic 2019 assessment, which showed 53% of students proficient in English and 46% proficient in math.
State education leaders said they recognize that more needs to be done to reverse the learning loss experienced by students during COVID, but that more patience is needed for students and educators as they make up that ground.
“We knew that recovering was going to take time,” said Cora Scott, the deputy state education secretary. “We're asking people to stay focused and stay the course.”
Paul Herdman, president and CEO of the Rodel Foundation, a Wilmington-based organization that has studied and advocates for public education advancement in Delaware for more than two decades, also echoed Scott’s message.
“I think we're still in the recovery mode … Overall, not where we need to be, but it’s different from where we were a year ago, when everything was heading in the wrong direction. It feels like to me that things are stabilizing,” he said.
What is being done?
For the last two years, state education leaders have emphasized the impact that COVID had on Delaware students, who were forced to learn remotely under less-than-ideal circumstances for much of 2020 and 2021. Family members may have died from COVID or been laid off from work, internet connection was not always reliable, and students lost the interpersonal connection of a classroom.
“For a good part of last year, just the stamina of getting up every day, getting ready and coming to school and spending six and a half hours in school was a bit of a challenge. I think people had to get used to that because there was a long period of time where they didn’t have to do that,” said Steve Lucas, superintendent of the Lake Forest School District based in Felton. I'm pretty confident we are past that now and I'm hoping this year we're going to have a little emphasis on attendance, because kids can't learn if they're not in school.”
With students fully back in schools for the first time last year, Theresa Bennett, director of the state Department of Education (DOE) Office of Assessment, said the community could finally start to see the results of higher quality instructional materials rolled out by the state in 2018 for math and 2019 for English.
“When we adopted the Common Core State Standards back in 2010, there was nothing that was aligned with it. It takes textbook companies a good five years to take a look at the research, get experts on board and actually develop a textbook,” she explained, noting DOE developed its curriculum around the materials and supported educators with grants.
Many students received that instruction and curriculum for the first time in person last year and educators are continuing to receive feedback on how to improve instruction.
The Lake Forest School District was one that saw gains in both English and math. At Lake Forest North Elementary, the gains were significant: 65% of students scoring proficient or higher in English, a 15-percentage point increase from last year, while 67% scored proficient or higher in math, up 13 percentage points.
Lucas credited the system’s gains to its commitment to multi-tiered systems of supports, or using diagnostic tests to identify a student’s strengths and weaknesses to best align them with the right educator.
“For instance, for those kids who need support in numeric fluency, we will give them a teacher who's really good at teaching that skill and then we'll try to build them up and move them from one tier into another tier,” he said.
“We're glad we had a rebound, but we know we have a long way to go though. We're not at all satisfied with the results,” he said.
Teacher shortage hurts
One of the major challenges for schools around the state has been staffing teachers, leading to a continuous shuffle to cover classrooms and increased competition to retain staff. The Delaware State Education Association (DSEA), a union for state teachers, reported that there were nearly 400 teaching vacancies unfilled at the end of the 2022-23 school year.
“We are still in a deficit with teachers. We are in a deficit with substitutes. I know some school districts have paraprofessionals in the classroom, and they have teachers teaching through Zoom mechanisms in the classroom,” said Shelley Meadowcroft, a DSEA spokesperson.
Lucas, at Lake Forest, concurred that it was tough to attract teachers, and younger teachers weren’t backfilling a rising number of retirements fast enough. Younger teachers would also need more time to learn and grow professionally in their classrooms.
As one of the smallest school districts in Delaware, Lake Forest depends upon a strong culture and community support to help attract and retain teachers, Lucas said. The community recently overwhelmingly approved a referendum that raised local taxes to support schools as well – one of the key ways that school leadership can see whether their vision is accepted by their community.
“It's really a vote of confidence; that people understand how seriously we take preparing their students for the future. It also reminds us that we're on the same team,” he said.
Delaware’s teaching shortage has been exacerbated by competition from neighboring states, which pay their teachers considerably more on average. New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania all pay teachers more than $70,000 a year on average, ranking within the Top 12 nationwide, while Delaware ranks 16th at $65,141.
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Gov. John Carney announces a proposal to boost teacher salaries by 9% this year during Jan. 17 press conference in Dover. | PHOTO COURTESY OF GOVERNOR'S OFFICE[/caption]
Gov. John Carney included a 9% pay bump for teacher salaries in his Fiscal Year 2024 budget that will make the First State more competitive, and Michael Saylor, director of educator excellence at the state Department of Education, said it anecdotally has helped despite being just recently approved.
“I recently met with state HR directors, and they've told me that they have far fewer openings this year than they did in years past,” he said. “I think the increase is having an impact.”
Saylor noted that Delaware has also led the nation in the increase of educators in its workforce since the pandemic began at 5.1% – one of only three states to not lose workforce altogether.
“The fact that we're continuing to grow our workforce is a good sign. People still want to enter education,” he said. “Not that we aren't experiencing a shortage, but it's not nearly to the extent that some states are seeing with a 10% dip in their workforce.”
This year, the state legislature also approved a new teaching apprenticeship program, where those who have at least an associate degree can apprentice with a teacher in a school district toward a teaching certificate while getting paid, Saylor said. It complements the state’s Grow Your Own grant program, which assists those within school communities thinking about a teaching degree and its year-long student teacher residency program that better prepares new teachers.
“We're not only focused on those teachers that are in our classrooms now but we're looking long term as well,” Saylor said.
What can change?
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Rodel Foundation President and CEO Paul Herdman said that a new funding model could help at-risk students get better interventions, among other systemic changes. | DBT PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS[/caption]
Herdman, of Rodel, noted that one of the challenges for Delaware’s public education system is its decades-old, resource-based funding model, making it one of only 17 states that still use it exclusively, while neighboring states use a student-focused model.
Delaware’s inflexible model essentially counts all students the same for funding, regardless of special needs of a student, ranging from English as a second language to neurodiversity to income eligibility needs.
“There are very few systems that we really rely on from the 1940s at this point. And it was based on a system that was built before students of color had equal status in the schools or students that spoke English as a second language or students with disabilities had full access to all public schools,” Herdman said.
The funding model is under review after a landmark court case won by the American Civil Liberties Union determined that the state was not appropriately funding disadvantaged students. A report on that review is due to be released this fall, which Herdman said could help rewrite Delaware’s public education model.
“At base, we should maximize the dollars we've got. Once we have a fresh perspective on this, I think we need to think about the legislative changes we need to make in order to modernize the system,” he said.
In the short term, Rodel supports the state investments in teacher compensation and mental health supports for students. It also backs the expansion of learning acceleration programs, like the high-impact tutoring program run by Reading Assist that is now backed by a $1 million grant from Accelerate, that can help teachers make up lost ground from the pandemic.
But Herdman also noted that Delaware can do a better job of promoting its recent educational success, including a dramatically higher public school attendance rate compared to two decades ago, a career Pathways program that is a nationally recognized best practice model, and the growth of high-impact charter schools that meet individual skills and needs.
“I don't want to paper over the challenges, but I also don't think we do a great job telling the positive stories that we do have,” he said.
