Deirdre Taylor is a resident of Lewes and Newark. The following was also sent to her state senator and state representative.
An article in the Daily State News outlined the cutback on state funding for substitute teachers and shared that Kelly Education temps are being used as substitutes (“Kent County schools share substitute teacher funding numbers amid possible state budget cuts”).
Having just finished a book by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., and watching the governor of Mississippi speak on Easter Sunday on Fox’s “One Nation With Brian Kilmeade,” I have some thoughts.
If you didn’t know, Sen. Kennedy graduated from Vanderbilt University, got his first law degree from the University of Virginia and then went to law school at the University of Oxford and graduated. He was in the top of all his classes.
Kennedy started as a Democrat in Louisiana. He was the legal counsel to one of the governors, and then, he was elected treasurer of the state. As treasurer, he went after Louisiana residents who had purchased homes in Austin, Texas, to avoid paying Louisiana’s 6% tax, and he charged them and got the state’s money back. Most of the people he charged were Democrats, which put him out of favor with the Democrat machine. Imagine that! So, he switched to the Republican Party, where his values aligned. As treasurer, Kennedy received a large request for money to fund the school system, which he thought was outrageous. So, Kennedy investigated what it would take to be a substitute teacher in Louisiana. It took a four-year degree and a class to become a substitute. He took the class, since he had the degrees necessary to comply.
Treasurer Kennedy started by teaching a 10th grade chemistry class, which almost killed him. But he went back once or twice a week to middle school classes to see what was going on in the schools. There were changes to curriculum, and he had a law passed that children could not move out of third grade until they could do math and read at the third grade level. There was improvement in graduation rates, and grades improved. Imagine that!
In Mississippi, the same law was enacted for passing third grade, and all the diversity, equity and inclusion and “woke” materials were taken out of schools. They went back to teaching the basics — reading, math, history, science, etc. — and stuck to it. The Mississippi graduation rate went from 72% to 90%. Delaware lawmakers and staff need to become substitute teachers. They need firsthand knowledge of what is going on in the education system (or lack thereof).
Sen. Laura Sturgeon, D-Woodbrook, is engineering the education improvement legislation and enactment. It will take two years to put into effect because teachers have to learn what is in the law. Wow! Do we need smarter teachers or better legislation? Something is big-time wrong. And what happens to the students who are being pushed through the system and graduate when they can’t read or do math? Even Harvard University is having remedial courses for students to get them up to speed.
Gentlemen, something is very wrong with the education system in Delaware. Instead of reinventing the wheel with Laura Sturgeon, why not take a leaf out of the books of states where education is working? Another state with success in education is Arkansas.
It is time, for the sake of our children and attracting business to our state, that we wake up and do something positive for education. Also, confront the lack of discipline in the schools and have all phones removed from the time the kids walk in until they go home at the end of the day, period.
Thank you for listening.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
