Campaign For Lieutenant Governor Focusing On Children’s Issues

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, July 28, 2008

Wilmington – Matt Denn, the Democratic candidate to be Delaware’s next Lieutenant Governor, announced his plan to “attract the very best teachers to Delaware’s public schools and to create working conditions and classroom environments for those teachers that will nurture real success for students.”

Denn said that the quality of classroom teaching is the single most important factor in the success of public school students and that recruiting good teachers will be critical in the coming years as Delaware faces 2,300 teacher retirements in the next decade.

A four-part plan to attract teachers released by Denn Monday includes:

Making Delaware’s Starting Teacher Salaries The Best In The Region – Salary and benefits for Delaware teachers should be the best in the region, making it the preferred choice for teachers, Denn said.

“Will this cost money? Of course it will. But I expect to use some of the savings that we realize from the plans I proposed several weeks ago [reducing the percentage of education funds spent outside the classroom] to fund this initiative,” Denn said. “We spend millions of dollars a year trying to lure new businesses to our state. It is about time that we realized that if we want to recruit new businesses, we can do that best by recruiting excellent new teachers. Strong schools are the backbone of a strong state economy.”

Controlling Class Size – Not only do small class sizes improve student performance, they make Delaware a more attractive place to teach. Denn said he supports incremental improvements to the state’s class size.

Changing The Way Teachers Are Paid – Denn believes that we must change the way that we compensate teachers, so that teachers who excel in the classroom and teachers who take on additional challenges are rewarded. Denn believes examples in other states illustrate how a plan to bring more accountability can succeed.

“First and foremost, they worked with teachers from the outset in designing their programs. There were disagreements, to be sure, but teachers were involved in the discussions from day one. The second common denominator is that the new compensation system was accompanied by significant new funds—that was the tradeoff, higher compensation for greater accountability,” Denn said.

“Third, several of the programs have significant financial incentives for teachers who are willing to teach in challenging schools. Finally, the rewards are based upon student improvement in the course of a school year, and they are based upon testing methods that have earned parents’ and teachers’ trust.”

Denn said alternative pay plans should initially be piloted in two Delaware school districts in the 2009-2010 school year.

Bolstering Professional Development In The Classroom – Professionals in every other walk of life receive constant training to make sure they are at the top of their game. Denn believes that teachers should be no different. One area where Delaware can improve is in having senior teachers work as mentors in the classroom with their younger peers, reinforcing the skills that have been taught in professional development classes. Education experts have said that this classroom peer mentoring is a critical and overlooked component of professional development, Denn said.

“If we take the steps I discussed several weeks ago to direct money into the classroom, and make public education a priority in the state budget, we should be able to do many of these things without imposing new burdens on taxpayers,” Denn said. “And if we do these four things, we will have put in place the most important building blocks to making Delaware’s schools the best in America.”

Denn has centered his campaign – and will focus in his term as Lieutenant Governor – on issues affecting children, including education, health care, environmental issues and improving services to children who are abused, neglected, living in foster care, or fighting to overcome disabilities.

To learn more about Matt Denn and his campaign, go to www.MattDenn.com.

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