Priority Should Be Clean, Affordable Energy And The Environment, Not The Interests Of The Oil Companies, Denn Says

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, August 7, 2008

Wilmington - Matt Denn, the Democratic candidate to be Delaware’s next Lieutenant Governor, made the following statement in response to the report in Thursday’s News Journal that his Republican opponent, Charles Copeland, would “not take off the table” the idea of allowing an oil platform to be built off the Delaware shore:

“I support limited oil drilling as part of a balanced national energy policy—but oil drilling off the coast of Delaware? We should not only take the idea off the table, we should throw it out of the house and lock the doors.

“Between his opposition to the Bluewater Wind project and his receptiveness to oil drilling off our beaches, Senator Copeland and I could not be further apart on the issues of renewable energy and the environment in Delaware. He has repeatedly sided with the power companies, at the expense of clean, affordable, renewable energy. Rather than doing the oil companies’ bidding and allowing them to drill everywhere, including off our coast, drilling should be limited to those areas that have already been identified.”

Yesterday was the Delaware Electrical Co-op’s annual meeting and chicken dinner, at the state fairgrounds in Harrington.  For a political candidate, it is a finely distilled version of the state fair.  No one is from Maryland, you get to say hi to people inside an air-conditioned building, and everyone stands in a single line for their food.  To get to their chicken the co-op members must run a gauntlet of about twenty politicians, but few of them seemed to mind—I was the last candidate they saw (I decided that if they could literally see and smell their chicken over my shoulder they would be in a good mood), and only one of hundreds of people wouldn’t shake my hand and give me a smile.  She said something about me being a Communist.

This was my fourth straight year at the Co-op dinner, and the great thing about it was that lots of people remembered me, remembered that I had been there every year, and told me how much they appreciated the job that I had done as Insurance Commissioner.  It reinforced my belief that the best argument I have made for the job I am seeking for the next four years is the job that I have done for the last four years.

I think you will agree that this is not a typical campaign blog, in that it does not consist primarily of claims that I invented fire or that my opponent was responsible for the Bay of Pigs invasion.  (I have yet to hear his alibi for the day that New Coke was created, but we will give him a pass for now.)  But every once in a while we have to take care of business here, and this is one of those days.

Folks, it’s time to contribute to the Denn campaign.  You can do so online or through the mail at http://www.mattdenn.com/getinvolved/contribute/.  We are entering the home stretch, and I am running against an opponent who will be able to fund much of his campaign by going to the ATM machine.  If you think it is time that kids had an advocate in the state capital, please help out today.

Next time, we will return to our normal programming.

Today, I am going to attend a bill signing ceremony for a bill that I wrote to help the Veterans Administration hospital in Elsmere hire more doctors, so our veterans do not have to go on long waiting lists or travel long distances for important medical procedures.

This is one that I am really proud of.  I found out about a problem, figured out a good solution to it, gathered a bi-partisan group of legislators together to address it, and got a bill passed that put our solution into place.  No blaming, no drama, just working to get the people’s business done.  And I have been amazed at how closely many veterans have followed the bill—I get asked about it more often when I am campaigning than almost any other subject.

Delaware’s veterans have earned this much and more from us.  

Delaware State News, July 29, 2008

DOVER — Attracting the best possible teachers to educate stu­dents and providing a positive learning environment would be top priorities for state Insurance Commissioner Matthew P. Denn if he is elected lieutenant gover­nor.

Mr. Denn, a Democrat vying against Republican Sen. Charles L. Copeland, said Monday that the quality of classroom teaching is the 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.

Delaware’s teacher salaries, he said, should be the best in the region to attract more quality teachers.

“Will this cost money?” Mr. Denn asked. “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.”

“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.”

Mr. Denn said the state should change the way teachers are paid, rewarding those who excel in the classroom and take on ad­ditional responsibilities. He said alternative pay plans should ini­tially be piloted in two Delaware school districts in the 2009-10 school year.

The plan also calls for con­trolling class size and bolstering professional development in the classroom.

Candidate unveils full platform

The News Journal, July 29, 2008

Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor Matt Denn wants to boost the state’s efforts to attract better-qualified teachers.

Denn, the state insurance commissioner, announced Monday morning the second half of his education platform, which focuses on raising teacher pay, controlling classroom size, providing pay incentives for teachers and implementing more professional training. The incentives would reward teachers whose students excel or who teach at high-risk schools.

Republican opponent Sen. Charlie Copeland, R-West Farm, said the plan reads more like a wish list everyone agrees upon, but it lacks the steps to fund and implement it.

“We all want those things,” Copeland said. “How’s he going to get there?”

Denn is focusing his campaign on children’s issues. The first half of his education plan proposed creating a spending minimum for state funds used for classroom-related expenses and increasing accountability for funding.

The second portion aims at taking a look at how much districts spend on classroom costs and how the money’s being spent.

The Vision 2015 initiative listed teacher recruitment and financial bonuses as a goal, but the price tag was steep — estimated at more than $100 million over several years — and the program has yet to take off fully..

Much of Denn’s platform echoes suggestions made by the Vision 2015 group but lacks specific plans for implementation.

In both portions of Denn’s platform, he emphasizes the need to hold discussions with teachers and school officials to iron out the details.

Denn said he contacted Professor Allan Odden, co-director of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to discuss his plan before presenting it to the public. Denn said Odden is on the front line of research regarding incentive pay.

Odden said Denn’s plan overlaps with successful programs that are popping up around the country and that giving teachers incentives opposed to increasing pay across the board has proved more successful in motivating educators.

Denn said he would like to pilot a financial incentive program by issuing grants to two school districts for the 2009-10 school year. The districts would have to submit plans drafted with teachers and the top two would be selected to receive the funding.

When Vision 2015 officials announced their goal of creating an incentive program, Delaware State Education Association president Barbara Grogg questioned how progress would be measured and whether the pay scale would be based on the Delaware Student Testing Program.

But now, she says DSEA is “excited” about working with Denn’s plan, and thinks an incentive program modeled after those in Minnesota or Arizona could be beneficial.

Copeland said he agrees with the concepts of trying to recruit more qualified teachers, increase pay and reduce classroom size, and that he has been working to spearhead legislation in the Senate. But the sticking point was finding the money to pay for it all.

That gets even harder, he said, when groups like DSEA and others fight efforts to increase accountability and transparency.

Copeland pointed to legislation he sponsored this year that would have required districts to publish their budgets online and increase accountability. He also cited legislation that would have mandated schools be audited each year by a certified public accountant. Both measures, he said, were defeated by the Democratic majority in the Senate.

Denn acknowledged the cost that would accompany such an initiative, but that the first portion of his plan would cut overhead costs and funnel more money to efforts such as increasing teacher pay.

“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,” Denn said. “Strong schools are the backbone of a strong state economy.”