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Jack Markell on Education
Delaware Democratic Governor
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Common Core Standards including world language immersion
We made the difficult choice to raise our academic standards for the world our children will live in. Teachers across the state are transitioning to the Common Core Standards, a set of uniform, higher standards that will better prepare our students
for the global economy. As we move to these higher standards, fewer of our students will meet them initially. It is not an easy change, but it is one we must make, and our students will rise to the challenge.Thanks to another investment, 10,000
Delaware students will participate in a world language immersion program over the next decade. 340 students started the program this year. For example, at McIlvane Early Learning Center in Magnolia, 100 kindergartners spend half their school day
learning science, social studies and math in Chinese. One of the Chinese teachers there had a goal for her students to be able to count to 100 by the end of the school year; they accomplished that by November.
Source: 2013 Delaware State of the State speech
, Jan 17, 2013
State provided public schools deserve improvement
Our commitment to improving K-12 education is clear and constant--because it gives children a much better chance to graduate ready to succeed in the work world. Our commitment to early childhood education is becoming more clear as well--
because children need every opportunity to show up, ready to learn, ready to succeed, and ready to make the most of the great public schools our state provides-- all critical components to keep our state, moving forward.
Source: 2011 gubernatorial press release, "Early Education"
, Oct 14, 2011
Improve charter schools, teachers, and accountability
Efforts to improve education continued with legislation to reform the charter school system, better enable schools to attract the best teachers, improve the state's ability to measure the impact of education initiatives, and ensure that services for
children with disabilities are more equitably and effectively delivered. These reforms will help us improve accountability and react more quickly and effectively when a school is in trouble.
Source: 2011 gubernatorial press release, "Legislative Session"
, Jul 1, 2011
Ensure we have the best possible public schools
[We will work] with Delaware's excellent educators to ensure we have the best possible public schools. Employers want to know that their children will have a great place to learn and that our schools will graduate young people ready to thrive in the work
world. Our students today are graduating into a job environment far different from what their parents faced. They are competing with graduates from around the world for jobs and we are competing with governments to help make those opportunities available
Source: 2011 Delaware State of the State Address
, Jan 20, 2011
Evaluate whether charter schools are becoming segregated
Delaware students and families can choose to attend any public school in the country, making our system one of the only comprehensive public school choice programs in the country. We are ranked 3rd in the country in the percentage of children who attend
charter schools. After over a decade of operation for both programs, I will ensure the following evaluations are made:- Are the programs working as intended or not?
- Are school choice and charter schools helping or hurting the ability of existing
public school districts to offer quality programs?
- Are the Charter schools and public schools becoming “segregated?”
- How do we deal with construction financing for charter schools?
We need to seriously review how well charter schools are
inter-district transfers are serving the needs of all Delaware families. And we need parents to understand their options for utilizing charter schools--a deficit identified in Opportunity Knocks.
Source: 2008 Gubernatorial campaign website, markell.org, “Issues”
, Nov 4, 2008
Page last updated: Apr 25, 2013
