Vision Coalition Student Centered Funding Priorities

The Vision Coalition Leadership Team has been advocating for student-centered funding for two decades. The coalition’s newest plan, Student Equity and Excellence 2035, recommends student-centered funding that builds on the progress Delaware has made. These recommendations align with the recommendations from the American Institute for Research’s 2023 Assessment of Delaware Public School Funding and with the principles for an equitable funding formula decided by the Public Education Funding Commission.

We, the Vision Coalition Leadership Team, call on policymakers to act on the recommendations in the independent funding assessment. The recommendations provide a unique opportunity for Delaware to act on longstanding issues of equity. The coalition developed this crosswalk to provide a resource for policymakers, commissioners, stakeholders, and advocates. As the commission develops its recommendations and policymakers discuss action, the coalition urges Delawareans to keep these criteria and recommendations front and center.

As policymakers consider these recommendations, we ask that they act with the following key principles in mind:

Engage key stakeholders—especially districts and charter schools, educators, researchers/policy experts, and organizations that work with students and families
Approach the issues systemically so the underlying inequities and inflexibilities can be addressed—avoid incremental changes, which could contribute to greater inequity and inflexibility
Make changes with increased investments so no district or charter loses funding
- The research is clear: More money matters, especially when invested to support specific student groups, such as students from low-income backgrounds, multilingual learners, and students with special needs.
Maintain the educator salary schedule to ensure minimum compensation is guaranteed statewide
Sustain the strengths of Delaware’s system, especially the predictability and stability of education funding
Prioritize equity for students based on need and among school districts and charters based on local property wealth and ability to raise local funds

The Public Education Funding Commission will be reviewing models and developing initial recommendations by October 2025. Sign up for the Vision Coalition mailing list to stay up to date on these issues.

Vision Coalition Recommendations Student Equity and Excellence 2035	Public Education Funding Commission Principles	AIR Recommendation Assessment of Delaware Public School Funding (2023)	National Context From Education Commission of the States, EdBuild, and Education Resource Strategies	Current State Delaware
Adequately fund schools to pay educators and school staff competitively, in order to attract and retain high-performing educators and meet educational goals.	Adequate: Ensure that funding is adequate to meet school/student needs. Staff protections: the formula should include protections for school and staff.	Delaware should increase investment in its public school system. Delaware should implement generous, recurring allocations that ultimately reach AIR recommended $500M – $1B or an additional 27% to 46% over current investment, based on research and educator expert recommendations.	13 states including our regional peers (MD, PA, ME, NH, RI, MA, CT, NJ, VT, NY, AL, IL, WY) all spend more and perform better on all 4th and 8th grade math and reading benchmarks. If Delaware invested an additional 27%, it would be in the middle range of these states.	Delaware currently ranks 14th in the nation in spending, however per research, no state is actually spending what is calculated to be an “adequate” amount on education.
Distribute more state resources based on the numbers of students with particular needs—increase funding for low-income, multilingual learner students (MLLs), and those with special needs—and ensure funding follows each student to district, charter school, or vocational technical district.	Targeted: provide additional funding to high-need student groups. Streamlined: reduce administrative burden on schools.	Delaware should distribute more resources according to student needs. Delaware should add generous weights to a base amount determined by student needs: – Students from Low-income Backgrounds: 54% – 81% – MLLs: 15% – 78% – Sped (Basic): 170% – 234% – Special ed (intensive and complex): 275% – 832% Students may qualify for more than one weight.	Students from low-income backgrounds 35 states use additional weights for students from low income backgrounds (weights ranging from 3% to 25%, some states utilize flat rates) 28 states use weights for concentrated poverty (various ways of funding) 16 states have both MLLs: 49 states have additional weights for MLLs (weights ranging from 20% to 250%, some states use flat rates). Special Education: 10 states use a single student weight 18 states have multiple student weights 6 states are resource based (DE included – though there are lower ratios to account for students with special education needs)	Delaware’s base formula only provides additional funding for students with disabilities in the form of lower student-teacher ratios. Opportunity Funding is an additional targeted amount for students from low-income backgrounds and multilingual learners, however this only amounts to roughly $1,000 per student or an additional 5-6%.
Establish a funding formula that is centered on student needs, and where funding follows the student.	Targeted: provide additional funding to high-needs student groups.	Delaware should implement a weighted student funding or foundation state formula.	41 states have a student based (or foundation) formula with a base (between $7k- $10k on average) and weights.	Delaware is one of only 7 states that still currently uses a unit (or resource) based system. However, there are lower ratios for students with special needs, and the formula is somewhat different for vocational funding.
Allow for more flexibility in how funding is spent so that schools and districts can meet their students’ unique needs and make programmatic and personnel decisions, providing more decision-making at the school level with those closest to students. Remove burdensome restrictions, waiver processes, and reporting requirements.	Flexible: allow for greater flexibility in how funds are expended. Streamlined: reduce the administrative burden on schools.	Delaware should allow for more flexibility in how a district or charter allocates resources. Delaware should reconsider its current formula, which largely allocates funds to districts as general funding.	Research indicates that school leaders need sufficient authority to flexibly organize talent, time, and technology around a vision for transforming student performance. However, traditional practices, regulations, and contractual obligations prevent many of them from making the best use of these resources.	Funds in Delaware are distributed in a highly prescriptive manner, with student attendance counts determining how many adult staff positions a school can hire, often with over 40 distinct line items prescribing where funds can be spent. Of state funds generated by a school, 98% must be spent in that school. Most of the flexible funding is distributed through Opportunity Funding, which is only an additional 5-6%. There is also additional flexibility with 2% of funding that districts can withhold to redistribute, as well as in line items such as Related Services and Academic Excellence units.
Provide state funding to account for local wealth inequities across districts, and require districts to pay a local share based on local wealth levels. Reform the referendum process so local communities are fairly taxed and all districts can keep up with operating costs, up to a limit, without going to voters.	Equitable: funding should be adjusted for local wealth and student needs.	Delaware should account for local capacity and address tax inequity. The formula should establish a “local share” that takes into account the local capacity to raise revenue with a reasonable uniform tax rate. The formula should adjust state aid to districts based on districts’ ability to generate funds locally.	21 states have a “ceiling” for how much districts can raise. 27 states set a level above which states cannot raise property taxes before voter approval. 25 states have a “floor” or minimum on the property tax rate that school districts may impose.	In Delaware, local funding exists largely independently of state funding, with the state contributing its portion regardless of the district’s ability to raise its local portion. Additionally, any local property tax increase for operating funds needs to be approved by voters through a referendum, and Delaware is the only state that requires this. Boards have the ability to raise match taxes and tuition tax without going to referendum. Vo-tech districts can raise local taxes up to a limit set by the General Assembly. Delaware is also the only state where state funds and local funds both go to schools with higher wealth, while in most states state funds are expended to offset the higher local wealth of school districts. Delaware’s state funding is mostly allocated in units, which are based on the education and experience of educators.
Provide transparency so that taxpayers, policymakers and families can understand how the state allocates funds and the nature of the shared responsibility between the state and local districts in adequately funding schools. Ensure administrators can easily calculate, anticipate and rely on the amount of funding they will receive year to year.	Transparent: provide greater clarity on how funds are generated and expended.	Delaware should improve its funding transparency. A large majority of funding should be allocated through base and weights to ensure stability and flexibility for districts.	Some best practices include: Clearly reporting district revenues and expenditures in a way that is accessible and understandable to policymakers, families, and community members. Ensuring that districts create plans to connect goals, actions, and budgets and that there is an opportunity for public input on these plans Through these plans, districts can be held accountable to how additional funding is being used to best support student learning.	“Delaware’s system consists of many separate formulas, each distributing a different type of staffing position or funding allocation primarily through a unit system. An additional barrier is that units are not readily converted into dollars of funding. The price of individual units, in terms of state funding, depends on the experience and education of individual staff members. Delaware’s unit system is atypical of how most states structure their systems for funding education.” AIR
Simplify how charter schools are funded: establish a target amount inclusive of state and local funding, and provide more predictability year to year.	Equitable: funding should be adjusted for local wealth and student needs. Streamlined: a new formula should reduce administrative burden on schools.	Delaware should simplify how it calculates the local share provided to a charter school. “A formula that accounted for both state and local revenue to generate funding targets and then met those targets through a combination of state and local revenue would also address variability around charter schools’ local shares” AIR	In 18 states, all charter schools receive local share through their district. In 11 states, some charters receive local funding through their district. In 5 states, local share is withheld by the state from the district and distributed to charter schools. In 9 states, the state directly provides a separate form of state funding instead of local share.	The Delaware Department of Education calculates the local cost per pupil expended by each school district for each type of student in the previous year. Charters receive funds that can be spent flexibly. Charter schools receive a share of local funding from their students’ district(s) of residence based on these rates.

Vision Coalition Recommendations

Student Equity and Excellence 2035

Public Education Funding Commission Principles

AIR Recommendation

Assessment of Delaware Public School Funding (2023)

National Context

From Education Commission of the States, EdBuild, and Education Resource Strategies

Current State

Delaware

Adequately fund schools to pay educators and school staff competitively, in order to attract and retain high-performing educators and meet educational goals.

Adequate: Ensure that funding is adequate to meet school/student needs.

Staff protections: the formula should include protections for school and staff.

Delaware should increase investment in its public school system.

Delaware should implement generous, recurring allocations that ultimately reach AIR recommended $500M – $1B or an additional 27% to 46% over current investment, based on research and educator expert recommendations.

13 states including our regional peers (MD, PA, ME, NH, RI, MA, CT, NJ, VT, NY, AL, IL, WY) all spend more and perform better on all 4th and 8th grade math and reading benchmarks.

If Delaware invested an additional 27%, it would be in the middle range of these states.

Delaware currently ranks 14th in the nation in spending, however per research, no state is actually spending what is calculated to be an “adequate” amount on education.

Distribute more state resources based on the numbers of students with particular needs—increase funding for low-income, multilingual learner students (MLLs), and those with special needs—and ensure funding follows each student to district, charter school, or vocational technical district.

Targeted: provide additional funding to high-need student groups.

Streamlined: reduce administrative burden on schools.

Delaware should distribute more resources according to student needs.

Delaware should add generous weights to a base amount determined by student needs:

– Students from Low-income Backgrounds: 54% – 81%
– MLLs: 15% – 78%
– Sped (Basic): 170% – 234%
– Special ed (intensive and complex): 275% – 832%

Students may qualify for more than one weight.

Students from low-income backgrounds

35 states use additional weights for students from low income backgrounds (weights ranging from 3% to 25%, some states utilize flat rates)
28 states use weights for concentrated poverty (various ways of funding)
16 states have both

MLLs: 49 states have additional weights for MLLs (weights ranging from 20% to 250%, some states use flat rates).

Special Education:

10 states use a single student weight
18 states have multiple student weights
6 states are resource based (DE included – though there are lower ratios to account for students with special education needs)

Delaware’s base formula only provides additional funding for students with disabilities in the form of lower student-teacher ratios.

Opportunity Funding is an additional targeted amount for students from low-income backgrounds and multilingual learners, however this only amounts to roughly $1,000 per student or an additional 5-6%.

Establish a funding formula that is centered on student needs, and where funding follows the student.

Targeted: provide additional funding to high-needs student groups.

Delaware should implement a weighted student funding or foundation state formula.

41 states have a student based (or foundation) formula with a base (between $7k- $10k on average) and weights.

Delaware is one of only 7 states that still currently uses a unit (or resource) based system. However, there are lower ratios for students with special needs, and the formula is somewhat different for vocational funding.

Allow for more flexibility in how funding is spent so that schools and districts can meet their students’ unique needs and make programmatic and personnel decisions, providing more decision-making at the school level with those closest to students.

Remove burdensome restrictions, waiver processes, and reporting requirements.

Flexible: allow for greater flexibility in how funds are expended.

Streamlined: reduce the administrative burden on schools.

Delaware should allow for more flexibility in how a district or charter allocates resources.

Delaware should reconsider its current formula, which largely allocates funds to districts as general funding.

Research indicates that school leaders need sufficient authority to flexibly organize talent, time, and technology around a vision for transforming student performance. However, traditional practices, regulations, and contractual obligations prevent many of them from making the best use of these resources.

Funds in Delaware are distributed in a highly prescriptive manner, with student attendance counts determining how many adult staff positions a school can hire, often with over 40 distinct line items prescribing where funds can be spent. Of state funds generated by a school, 98% must be spent in that school.

Most of the flexible funding is distributed through Opportunity Funding, which is only an additional 5-6%. There is also additional flexibility with 2% of funding that districts can withhold to redistribute, as well as in line items such as Related Services and Academic Excellence units.

Provide state funding to account for local wealth inequities across districts, and require districts to pay a local share based on local wealth levels.

Reform the referendum process so local communities are fairly taxed and all districts can keep up with operating costs, up to a limit, without going to voters.

Equitable: funding should be adjusted for local wealth and student needs.

Delaware should account for local capacity and address tax inequity.

The formula should establish a “local share” that takes into account the local capacity to raise revenue with a reasonable uniform tax rate. The formula should adjust state aid to districts based on districts’ ability to generate funds locally.

21 states have a “ceiling” for how much districts can raise.

27 states set a level above which states cannot raise property taxes before voter approval.

25 states have a “floor” or minimum on the property tax rate that school districts may impose.

In Delaware, local funding exists largely independently of state funding, with the state contributing its portion regardless of the district’s ability to raise its local portion. Additionally, any local property tax increase for operating funds needs to be approved by voters through a referendum, and Delaware is the only state that requires this. Boards have the ability to raise match taxes and tuition tax without going to referendum. Vo-tech districts can raise local taxes up to a limit set by the General Assembly.

Delaware is also the only state where state funds and local funds both go to schools with higher wealth, while in most states state funds are expended to offset the higher local wealth of school districts. Delaware’s state funding is mostly allocated in units, which are based on the education and experience of educators.

Provide transparency so that taxpayers, policymakers and families can understand how the state allocates funds and the nature of the shared responsibility between the state and local districts in adequately funding schools.

Ensure administrators can easily calculate, anticipate and rely on the amount of funding they will receive year to year.

Transparent: provide greater clarity on how funds are generated and expended.

Delaware should improve its funding transparency.

A large majority of funding should be allocated through base and weights to ensure stability and flexibility for districts.

Some best practices include:

Clearly reporting district revenues and expenditures in a way that is accessible and understandable to policymakers, families, and community members.
Ensuring that districts create plans to connect goals, actions, and budgets and that there is an opportunity for public input on these plans Through these plans, districts can be held accountable to how additional funding is being used to best support student learning.

“Delaware’s system consists of many separate formulas, each distributing a different type of staffing position or funding allocation primarily through a unit system.

An additional barrier is that units are not readily converted into dollars of funding. The price of individual units, in terms of state funding, depends on the experience and education of individual staff members. Delaware’s unit system is atypical of how most states structure their systems for funding education.” AIR

Simplify how charter schools are funded: establish a target amount inclusive of state and local funding, and provide more predictability year to year.

Equitable: funding should be adjusted for local wealth and student needs.

Streamlined: a new formula should reduce administrative burden on schools.

Delaware should simplify how it calculates the local share provided to a charter school.

“A formula that accounted for both state and local revenue to generate funding targets and then met those targets through a combination of state and local revenue would also address variability around charter schools’ local shares” AIR

In 18 states, all charter schools receive local share through their district.

In 11 states, some charters receive local funding through their district.

In 5 states, local share is withheld by the state from the district and distributed to charter schools.

In 9 states, the state directly provides a separate form of state funding instead of local share.

The Delaware Department of Education calculates the local cost per pupil expended by each school district for each type of student in the previous year.

Charters receive funds that can be spent flexibly.

Charter schools receive a share of local funding from their students’ district(s) of residence based on these rates.