Sen. Laura Sturgeon is a Democrat representing Woodbrook. Rep. Kim Williams is a Democrat serving Newport.
Just over 20 years ago, Delaware ranked sixth in the nation in fourth grade reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Since then, we have seen the impact on Delaware of well-intentioned, frequently changing state and federal education policies, such as Race to the Top, Common Core, a revolving door of standardized state tests (the Delaware Student Testing Program, the Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and the SAT), scripted curricula that leave no room for teachers to practice their craft in a manner that is responsive to the varying needs of the students in front of them and a reduction of play and recess. As Jenna DiEleuterio, our 2026 Teacher of the Year, has proclaimed loud and clear: We have packed our children’s days with test preparation, as teachers frantically try to get through the curriculum, and in so doing, we have lost the art of building relationships, making connections and sparking a sense of awe and wonder about the world that leads to a love of learning and higher test scores.
As the chairs of the Education Committees in the Delaware Senate and House of Representatives, we have been tackling both the real and perceived diminishment of our competitive edge, and our bipartisan efforts have been embraced by our newest secretary of education, Cindy Marten, whose focus on implementing what we’ve legislated is acting as a force-multiplier that will lead to the results our public school students deserve.
In the 151st General Assembly, we led the effort to bring back phonics and require evidence-based reading instruction in all K-5 classrooms. Working closely with Kymyona Burke, who was the literacy director for the Mississippi Department of Education during the implementation of what has been dubbed the “Mississippi miracle,” we passed a three-bill package that covered literacy instruction, instructional materials, training, assessment and early screening.
We remain focused on improving educational outcomes for all students but acknowledge that lasting and significant growth does not happen overnight. In partnership with school leaders, the Department of Education must develop curricula, train educators and put the necessary materials in place before students will be able to fully benefit from these changes.
We are optimistic about the direction of our state under the leadership of Secretary Marten, whose background in early literacy plays a crucial role in implementing these initiatives with fidelity, to make sure our youngest learners become proficient readers in the years ahead.
Secretary Marten has aligned our focus on reading instruction in the Strategic Plan 2025-2028. In her literacy plan, she highlights instruction, educator support, strong school structures and family engagement. We share Secretary Marten’s belief that we will see our reading scores rise.
Regarding the negative perceptions that have taken hold in some sectors, we want to make clear that, for many years now, we have been sounding the alarm about how assessments like Smarter Balanced and the SAT are flawed measurement tools and are inappropriate for comparisons by state. Smarter Balanced does not measure how much a student grows over the course of a school year, so it gives teachers no real-time feedback on whether their methods are effective for the students they are teaching. The SAT has proven to be a disastrous measure of Delaware’s secondary education effectiveness because, not only is it not a test of growth, it is administered during the school day to every student, regardless of interest, effort or postsecondary plans. In other states, the SAT is only taken on Saturdays, by students who choose to take it and who must find a way to pay for it. The process of self-selection involved in taking the SAT outside of school for a fee (or fee waiver) yields much higher scores.
To address these concerns, we established the Delaware System of Student Assessments and Accountability Working Group in 2023, and we are moving forward with their recommendation to implement a Delaware growth model assessment for high school students, while still making the SAT available for free.
A severe teacher shortage that worsened after the pandemic has also had an impact on education in our state. That is why we have taken action to address this shortfall over the last several years by recruiting and retaining high-quality educators.
Together, we have led initiatives like the Grow Your Own Educator Program, the Teacher Academy, yearlong residencies and teacher apprenticeships. We served on the Public Education Compensation Commission, which recommended increasing educator salaries, championing those increases as members of the Joint Finance Committee. The result is that starting salaries of Delaware educators are moving from $42,000 annually in fiscal 2025 to $60,000 in fiscal 2028. These efforts have proven successful: In the most recent year that federal data was available, Delaware ranked first in the nation for growth in the number of educators from pre- to postpandemic.
Finally, after decades of stagnation, we are now closer than ever to implementing a more equitable, flexible and transparent public education funding formula, thanks to the work of the Public Education Funding Commission, on which we serve.
After extensive collaboration among state officials, district and charter school representatives, parents, community-based organizations and others, the PEFC has recommended moving toward a hybrid funding model that modernizes our decades-old unit formula. In its first phase, this formula will combine our current resource-based approach that provides additional personnel for younger students and those with learning disabilities with an approach that targets low-income, multilingual and career and technical education students with a per-pupil dollar amount that follows the student but can be used flexibly at the discretion of local school leaders. Students who fit into more than one high-needs category receive all the dollars associated with each category.
These recommendations are reflected in two bills under consideration by the General Assembly: Senate Bill 302 gives the Department of Education the authority to build the necessary infrastructure to operationalize the hybrid formula in the 2027-28 year. Senate Bill 303 makes the PEFC a permanent body, to continue refining the model over time.
Delaware’s economy relies on a well-educated workforce and on attracting businesses whose employees want to raise their families here. Students are relying on us to provide them the resources they need to thrive academically, socially and emotionally, so they can realize their fullest potential. While much work has already been done and is currently underway to build the world-class public education system Delaware students deserve, we look forward to continuing the work at the state and local levels with all who share our belief that investing thoughtfully and equitably in our children’s education must be a priority.
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