Markell: 'Won't hesitate' on priority schools

Gov. Jack Markell says he would prefer not to close the six so-called "priority schools" in the City of Wilmington, or give them to a charter or other outside manager. But he won't hesitate to do so if the Red Clay and Christian school districts can't work out an agreement with the Department of Education.

"We're in conversations now with both districts, and I hope those conversations produce good results," Markell said. "But if it doesn't, I will be in a position where I have to make a choice, and I won't hesitate to make it."

Markell addressed the controversy over the state's Priority Schools proposal in a speech during the Conference on Education, an event hosted by the Vision Coalition of Delaware, a group of education, nonprofit and business leaders seeking to create world-class schools in Delaware.

The state wants to take six inner-city schools with some of the state's lowest test scores – Red Clay's Highlands, Shortlidge and Warner Elementary and Christina's Stubbs and Bancroft Elementary and Bayard Middle – stock them with top-notch school leaders and teachers, and give them a total of $5.8 million to develop plans to drastically improve.

But ground rules the state wanted to set, like forcing every teacher to re-apply for their job, paying principals a minimum $160,000 salary and removing the schools from most district rules, have infuriated many teachers and school board members. After several meetings in which teachers and parents blasted the plan for hours in public meetings, both districts decided to reject the state's rules and start a process of writing their own.

The districts have said they are working with DoE to find common ground, but want to take more time to gather input from teachers, parents and others in the schools' communities. If an agreement isn't reached by the end of December, Markell could choose to take the schools out of the districts' hands.

Christina Superintendent Freeman Williams said he's hopeful Markell won't have to make that decision.

"From our vantage point, we are really engaged in getting the constituents at our three schools to be involved. And we've been sincere about reaching out to Gov. Markell and the Department of Education," he said. "We're committed to doing this the right way, not the fast way."

Red Clay Spokeswoman Pati Nash said the district has already informed its community that those consequences were possible.

"That's why we are working with our community in good faith," she said.

Markell's comments capped a speech in which he listed the education policies made during his tenure he believes will have the most impact.

He pointed to efforts to bolster early education for Delaware students, especially those from low-income families; a law to make it tougher to get into and graduate from teacher preparation programs; world language immersion classes; and efforts to get more kids to go to college, like administering the SAT in class and letting students apply for colleges in school.

Markell said he is proud that Delaware is leading the change to the Common Core State Standards, though he said the state needs to continue to improve how well it is implementing them.

"I may be in the minority, but I feel very strongly that Common Core will make our state more competitive," Markell said. "The whole reason we are so incredibly focused on education is that businesses and employers have more choices than ever before about where to locate and who to hire."

That's a theme that the conference's keynote speaker, author Amanda Ripley emphasized. Ripley followed foreign exchange students to countries where students outperform the U.S. in test scores and talked about some of the trends they noticed there.

"We are not getting dumber. We're actually getting smarter, but we are getting smarter more slowly than other countries," Ripley argued. "The good news is these countries are not some kind of magical place. If Estonia can do it, Delaware can do it."

The biggest thing students she talked to noticed, Ripley said, was that school was much more difficult in other places and pushed them harder. She also noticed things like a much smaller emphasis placed on sports and a much tougher road to becoming a teacher.

"Getting into teaching college in Finland is as difficult as getting into MIT," she said. "Once you do that, it makes the case easier to politicians to pay teachers more. And more importantly, it shows your students that education is something important and that you value."

Contact Matthew Albright at malbright@delawareonline.com, at malbright@delawareonline.com or at 324-2428.