50 Ideas for Delaware: Idea #5 on Curriculum

Doesn’t Delaware Deserve an online curriculum that is world class and available online through a statewide WiFi network?

From Vision 2015 – A statewide research-based curriculum so that all Delaware students, no matter where they live, are using the same high standards.

Expanded online distance learning to allow true 24/7 learning opportunities.

50 Ideas for Delaware: Idea #4 on The Role of the Principal

Doesn’t Delaware Deserve stronger principals who have more control over their personnel, dollars and support staff?

From Vision 2015:

Empower Principals to Lead Their Schools.

We must empower principals to be great school leaders, with enough knowledge, authority and flexibility to get results. We know that great principals, working closely with teachers and families, are needed to support great teaching in every classroom. In Delaware 68 percent of principals will retire in the next 10 years. Recommendations include:

Broader principal control of decision-making related to people, resources and time.
Increased accountability for student achievement and school performance
The flexibility to choose from among approved providers of educational services.
A statewide leadership academy for world-class principal recruitment, induction, retention and development.
A statewide base salary schedule, with significant bonuses tied to student achievement.
More easily accessible data on student performance, staffing and finances to help principals make better decisions.

Currently, principals often do not have decision-making authority over what happens in their schools. For instance, local district officials such as superintendents control only 8 percent of state funds and principals have even less discretion than that. Those closest to the students are in the best position to decide what will help their students most – as long as they are well trained to know what works best and then are held accountable for results.

50 Ideas for Delaware: Idea #3 on Alleviating Administrative Costs from the Classroom

Doesn’t Delaware Deserve a more efficient bureaucracy with fewer school districts (19) and more dollars in the classroom?

Take a look at this site to see what many “staff” members draw.

http://php.delawareonline.com/schoolemploy_salaries.php

Can’t there be less admin positions and more money spent on frontline teachers and classrooms?

50 Ideas for Delaware: Idea #2 on Teacher Training

Doesn’t Delaware Deserve testing that matches teacher training and student curriculum?

Vision 2015 Document on State Testing

We often hear that we are “teaching the test”. Well, my feelings are, why not do that unless the test is not a valid gauge of student progress.

“The Delaware Student Testing Program is designed to do the following:”

“serve as a measure of progress toward the Delaware standards;”
“ensure that students can apply their academic skills to realistic, everyday problems;”
“promote better instruction and curriculum by providing timely reports of students strengths and weaknesses;”
“serve as a primary indicator in the statewide accountability system;”
“help districts deal with the issue of who should and should not be promoted from grade to grade.”

Why then does the National Assessment of Educational Proficiency (NAEP) scores for Delaware reflect scores which are 50% lower???

Maybe the Test is flawed?

You want to control illegal workers??

Use this!

The Future of Retirement

Traditional Pension Benefits Going Away.

According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (www.ebri.org), only 16 million private-sector workers were covered by traditional single-employer defined-benefit retirement plans in 2005, down 22% from the total in 1998, and the number of actual plans is down 74% since 1985. In my experience, that number continues to decrease as we move to a society in which we are all in control of our retirement assets. For many of us, this is not daunting, but as I hit the speaking circuit I am constantly hit with the large gap between what the general populace is being asked to do and the knowledge and discipline necessary to responsibly prepare for retirement and other longer term financial goals.

Shouldn’t our tax code be changed to make it more simple, fair and easy to understand plus increase personal savings??

The Tax Gap

From The Wall Street Journal:

Congress, facing a tight budget, is looking for additional revenue, and lawmakers are focusing on narrowing the “tax gap,” collecting money that taxpayers owe but don’t pay. Even President Bush backs better collection of taxes, while maintaining his signature opposition to new taxes.

The emphasis on tax-law enforcement is largely the result of Democrats’ goal to observe “pay as you go” budget rules. Getting people to pay more of the taxes they owe is politically preferable to raising taxes. Already, Democrats in the Senate and House have suggested that tax-gap revenue could be used for purposes such as reducing the budget deficit, providing health insurance to more children and protecting middle-class households from the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Some Democrats also want to ramp up the IRS budget. “For some time, I think the IRS has been underfunded,” said Rep. John Lewis (D., Ga.), chairman of the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee.
As lawmakers delve into the details, they readily admit that tougher enforcement won’t supply all the revenue they might want to cover the cost of their spending and tax-cut proposals, and they ultimately will have to seek more politically risky options. The tax gap, estimated to be about a net $290 billion a year, represents errors, carelessness, willful under-reporting of income and failure to file at all.

Businesses already are pushing back against the new enforcement campaign, criticizing some ideas as onerous. Powerful small-business groups are especially vocal, and the National Federation of Independent Business has helped form a coalition to battle some proposals.

“You’re basically imposing more compliance burdens on an already overburdened taxpayer community,” says Macey Davis, the NFIB’s tax counsel. “If you claim that this is the community that creates more jobs…yet you want to come and have the federal government banging down their door … what does that say?”

We need a simple, fair and enforceable tax code, not more IRS agents.

50 Ideas for Delaware: Idea #1 on Education Funding

Here is the first 50 Ideas for Delaware idea detailed:

“The allocation of funds should be driven by the needs of the students,” says the Appoquinimink Superintendent and Vision 2015.

Instead, states including Delaware use complicated systems that group students and provide districts with financing for those groups. The districts then decide how to distribute that money among schools.

The districts receive more for students with learning disabilities but often get nothing from the state for low-income children, gifted students or others with special needs. In Delaware, they get very little extra for non-native-English speakers, known as English language learners.
“Students who have significant learning needs are going to require more dollars,” Brandywine School Board Vice President Nancy Doorey said. “School leaders need greater flexibility in being able to shift those dollars and really allocate based on need.”

“The neat idea behind student-based allocation is that the money goes out based on the needs of students, not on the organizational structure that is in place, not on the weight of different political forces in the system,” she said. “It’s designed to correct the inequitable allocations that either happen because of differences in tax base or differences that play out across schools.”

The shift to weighted budgeting is a national movement partly spurred by success in Edmonton, Alberta. The Canadian district achieved Vision 2015’s goal, revamping into a world leader using school choice, weighted funding and decentralization, which gives principals control of 92 percent of school budgets.

Doesn’t Delaware Deserve to put money where the student’s needs exist??

50 Ideas for Delaware: Technology

A Better Deal for Delaware announces an idea to improve technology in Delaware:

1. Doesn’t Delaware Deserve a statewide Wi Fi network that will support school students and businesses?

50 Ideas for Delaware: Taxes

A Better Deal for Delaware announces two ideas for tax reform:

1. Doesn’t Delaware Deserve tax simplification and a system that promotes savings, growth and investment?

2. Doesn’t Delaware Deserve to have all budget surpluses turned back to the voters not spent by the legislature?