Matt Denn believes that a focus on responsible spending in education is important to better serve today’s students, and to rebuild the public’s confidence in the public schools. Spending wisely is the right thing to do today for our kids, and it is the right thing to do for the future in laying the groundwork to expand public support for our schools. If Delawareans believe that our schools are using their money wisely, they will be much more likely to support those schools in the future.

Matt’s four-part plan for school funding reform includes:

Establishing A State Educational Funding Floor. The State of Delaware should devote the first six months of 2009 to working with parents, teachers, and other experts to (a) determine which categories of education spending provide direct services to children and which do not, and (b) establish what percentage of total district funds are appropriately spent on those categories that provide direct services to children. That percentage should become a legal floor for each local school district: a specific application to the Secretary of Education and a waiver should be required for any district seeking to spend less than the educational funding floor on direct student services.

State Auditing of Local School District Contracts. The state should routinely audit the terms of and performance upon contracts that local school districts enter into with private parties.

Creation and Training of Local District Financial Oversight Committees. Committees of parents, teachers, and financial professionals from each local school district should be created to monitor the spending decisions made by local district school boards. Those committee members should be trained in local school district finance by state Department of Education officials.

Formal Consideration of LEAD Committee Recommendations. A committee of experts has made recommendations to the state that could save tens of millions of dollars—money which could be redirected into classroom instruction. Some of those recommendations are feasible, others probably are not. But to date, no formal consideration has been given to the LEAD Committee’s recommendations. In early 2009, the state must make some hard decisions about which recommendations are achievable and which are not, and start the process of implementing those that can be achieved.