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??