Matt Bucher is the vice president of the Milford School District Board of Education, the chair of the Legislative Committee of the Delaware School Boards Association and the founder of the Buccaneer Educational Foundation. This was first published on the blog of A Better Delaware.
High per-capita costs. Low test scores. Off-the-rails student discipline. These issues, real and perceived, are killing our competitiveness, suppressing our economy and closing off opportunities to our children.
Anyone who has volunteered in nearly every possible facet of the Delaware public school experience, as I have these past 19 years, ought to see what is obvious in our comprehensive public school system. Here are some common sense solutions, which would have an immediate and positive effect on our schools, teachers and kids:
Return funding flexibility to local school districts
Over the past decade or so, decision-making power in public education has been shifted to the state bureaucracy and lawmakers in Dover. At the same time, costs have slowly but steadily been shifted to the local school districts. There is research to prove that, and for years, that research was given to the General Assembly in report form. Local districts need to be able to use funds for local needs. We are either a state with local educational authority, or we are not.
Curtail legislative initiatives that have unfunded compliance costs
With every initiative, pet project and expansion of employees and/or services that is mandated by Dover, the greater the cost to education. However, what is never taken into account is compliance costs for the local school districts. For example, if a bill is passed requiring additional counselors, someone in the local administration will have to handle the additional personnel issues, compliance with all employment regulations and management on all levels. The local school district must find a way to cover these costs — in personnel and time — from its own, often static, funds. The root of any “administrative bloat” recognized by the community can be traced directly to the ever-greater swarms of regulations and initiatives with which public school districts must contend. The rule must be: If a legislative mandate is not important enough to also fund the cost of complying with it, then the mandate is not, in fact, important at all.
‘Burden of proof’ laws
It’s time to change Delaware’s “burden of proof” laws for public schools, which make the state an outlier in legal cases regarding special education. In the vast majority of states, the complainant seeking legal relief bears the burden of proving the complaint is valid. Not so in Delaware. Delaware is one of six states that require public school districts to prove negatives in disputes regarding special education. As you can imagine, it is far easier (and cheaper) to settle these cases than to fight. As you can also easily imagine, these laws make it easy for lawyers to weaponize this process in hopes of a financial windfall. The burden of compliance and “preemptive defensive practices” among special education teachers and administrators alone is quite possibly in the millions of dollars, not to mention the cost of (unfairly) settling eminently winnable cases.
Let’s use money for education specifically for education
Did you know that tens of millions of dollars have been, by legislative fiat, pulled from educational funds over the past seven years? In the budget crunch of 2018, Delaware officials required each agency to return a percentage of its funds to the state coffers, in what was known then and now as the “giveback.” This “temporary” line item in the annual appropriations bill has ended for all state agencies — except education! Just this year, the educational “giveback” will cost local school districts over $26 million. What exactly is done with this money has never been made clear.
Student discipline is not going well
It doesn’t need to be studied; no committee needs to be formed. It’s embarrassing that this isn’t seen as self-evident. Many of our most involved parents and best-performing students have fled the comprehensive public school system because it lacks overall accountability and safety. The Delaware system is organized to force districts to keep students in standardized settings who — for whatever reasons — have extreme behavioral issues. Setting aside any component that stems from the home, there are certain steps that can be addressed by the government. Namely, more alternative schools need to be established for students who will not behave appropriately, so districts can maintain school climates and still provide education, both in the mainstream setting and the alternative facility.
Fix the testing dilemmas
If parents opt their students out of testing, it shouldn’t count against the school. There isn’t nuance here; either we believe parents are in charge of their children’s education, or we don’t. For students in high school, career-ready is just as important as college-ready. At this point, making every kid take the SAT (which no student who doesn’t plan to attend college has any motivation to do) is foolish, and everyone but the Delaware educational establishment seems to see that. The practical outcome of these misapplied tests and practices is that companies who are potential Delaware employers pass us over because of a perceived lack of aptitude in the future workforce.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
