The Public Education Funding Commission (PEFC) revisits the American Institutes for Research's (AIR) comprehensive study of Delaware's education funding system as it awaits new funding model proposals at its April meeting.
It's been over a year since the AIR report came out — one of the requirements of a 2020 legal settlement over the state’s inequitable education funding system.
While a lot of discourse around the December 2023 report has focused on the Education Cost Model (ECM) approach in determining how to reach funding equity within schools — which used existing data on student outcomes and education spending to determine the appropriate level of spending to meet specified outcomes for schools with different levels of student needs — there was an additional approach studied.
Professional Judgement Panels (PJPs), composed of various Delaware educators in all three counties, were tasked with specifying resources necessary to meet outcome goals for hypothetical schools that vary with respect to student need and context.
Principal Research Economist Jesse Levin told the PEFC there were four key takeaways from PJP school program designs: improving classroom conditions, more ongoing teacher professional learning, improving school staffing resources and implementing universal prekindergarten.
While recommended class size targets ranged from 14 pupils in a kindergarten classroom to 25 pupils in classrooms grades 9 to 12, Levin says whether more infrastructure is needed or a co-teaching model needs to be implemented, smaller class sizes are crucial in the eyes of the PJPs.
“They said that in order to truly build positive classroom relationships and to be able to respond to the varying needs of students in the class, they needed these class sizes. These were really required," Levin explained.
Other recommendations included floating special education teachers across departmentalized classes, two districtwide professional learning days per month and smaller caseload ratios for school psychologists and counselors.
After all the recommendations were compiled, AIR used the PJP results to project adequate cost statewide to implement the programs and compared it to current state spending.
The PJP approach recommends investing close to $1 billion more in education, and while this is a lot more than the ECM approach of $600 million more, Levin says the broader conclusions are the same: high-needs schools need more funding.
The PJP would increase Delaware's spending on education by 46%, while the ECM approach would increase spend by 37% — Delaware currently spends just over a third of its budget on public education.
Levin says while he understands the sticker shock of these types of investments, he believes they are necessary to reach Delaware's education outcome goals.
"If the number really seems too large and unobtainable, then you have to have a really sobering discussion about your standards," Levin told the PEFC. "And I just want to be frank with you. I've seen your standards, and they look great. If you want those standards, these are the best results— our best estimates of what it's going to take you to get there."
The PEFC intends to review new potential education funding formulas at its April meeting.
