FAQs

Fund Delaware's Future is a broad, statewide alliance united around a simple belief: Delaware's future depends on investing in Delaware's children. Every Delaware child deserves the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive — from the critical first years of life through high school graduation and the start of a career.

We advocate for strategic, accountable investments in high-quality, affordable early education; stronger K-12 schools; fair pay that helps attract and retain qualified educators; safe and healthy school facilities; stronger reading and writing instruction; and career and technical programs that prepare students for good-paying jobs.

The coalition seeks to ensure Delaware makes the sustained, transparent, and accountable investments needed to improve student outcomes, help working families make ends meet, and build the skilled workforce Delaware employers need for the state's long-term prosperity.

We aim to give Delawareans a unified voice in creating an education system that allows every child—and every community—to thrive.

Delaware's future depends on a strong public education system where every child—from our youngest learners to our most recent high school graduates—has an opportunity to succeed.

Building a 21st century public education system will not happen on its own. We need to invest in our children and their future now—and make sure every new investment is transparent, accountable, and focused on results.

Fund Delaware's Future is a statewide alliance that brings together teachers, parents, early educators, business leaders, local nonprofits, and community groups around a shared goal: making Delaware a place where children and families can live and thrive.

Together, we are fighting for high-quality, affordable pre-K and early childhood programs that support children's development, help them enter kindergarten ready to learn, and allow working parents to make ends meet without forcing them into debt to pay for childcare.

Delaware has set an ambitious goal of expanding access to publicly funded, high-quality early care and education for children ages 0–5. Today, only 1 in 5 Delaware children ages 5 and younger are served through publicly funded programs. The state's new strategic plan calls for doubling that share to 40% by 2028 — or roughly 11,000 more children able to access publicly funded early care and education. Reaching that goal will require a significant, sustained investment in our early childhood programs and the educators who make high-quality care possible.

We are fighting for a high-quality K-12 school system where every child receives the reading and writing support needed to reach grade level and every educator earns a fair wage so Delaware can attract and retain qualified teachers.

We are fighting for safe and healthy public school buildings where every classroom is free of mold and lead and it's safe to drink from every water fountain.

And we are fighting for a school system that invests in career and technical education as well as college preparation—so every student can graduate with a real path to a good-paying job, whether or not a four-year college is right for them.

A strong Delaware economy can only be achieved with a strong school system. Investing now in the education of future Delawareans will reduce costs for working families, support businesses with a stable and skilled workforce, keep families in the First State, and prepare our children to compete in a 21st century economy.

Fund Delaware's Future grew out of years of work by educators, families, nonprofits, community leaders, and other advocates to modernize Delaware's outdated education funding system.

Delaware has many organizations working to improve education from different perspectives. We have not always agreed on every policy, but we share a clear understanding that the current funding system is not meeting the needs of Delaware's students, educators, or families.

Teachers, local nonprofits, and other allied organizations found common ground through decades of commitment to expanding access to high-quality early care and to investing in a new and improved K-12 funding system.

While that first step is a major accomplishment, lasting change will require sustained public support, continued legislative action, and clear accountability for how new funding is used and what it achieves.

Fund Delaware's Future exists to give Delawareans that voice—and to make sure the state follows through.

Delaware faces many urgent challenges, including health care costs, housing, affordability, and economic growth. Investing in education is not separate from addressing those challenges—it is one of the most effective ways to confront them.

The average cost of childcare for one toddler equals roughly 20% of the median family income in Delaware and only 1 out of 5 children ages 5 and younger are enrolled in publicly funded early care and education programs. The average cost of preschool in Delaware now outpaces the cost of public university tuition. Those costs are pushing many Delawareans - especially women - out of the workforce or forced to make the impossible choice between earning a paycheck and finding safe, high-quality care for their children.

Delaware's state-funded early care and education program—ECAP—currently serves only about 2,200 children ages 0–5, and Delaware ranks 43rd nationally in access to state-funded pre-K. Yet ECAP demonstrates what high-quality public investment can look like: it supports programs with standards for curriculum and staff qualifications, provides funding that supports fair compensation for educators, and offers providers year-long contracts that create greater stability and predictability.

In FY27, Delaware invested $8 million in one-time state-funded pre-K and $31 million in Purchase of Care. If the state is serious about its goal of serving 40% of young children through publicly funded programs, those investments will need to grow substantially and sustainably.

Forcing families to make that choice does not benefit working families, children, or Delaware employers.

Only 38% of Delaware students are reading at grade level by third grade. High-quality early education helps children enter school ready to learn, but that foundation must be followed by strong reading and writing instruction and additional academic support for students who need it. Delaware's current funding formula does not consistently direct those resources to the schools and students with the greatest needs.

Those failures also contribute to student behavioral issues, which in turn exacerbate the teacher shortage, which is further worsened by the relatively low pay educators earn here in Delaware, where the starting salary for teachers is the lowest in the Mid Atlantic region and some are forced to rely on public benefits to make ends meet. Out of the 10,000 early childhood educators in Delaware 1/3 are on public assistance of some kind. Fair wages are necessary to put qualified educators in every classroom and give students the consistent support they need.

Delaware students also need more opportunities to prepare for life after graduation. Strong career and technical education can provide students who do not pursue a four-year degree with the training, technical knowledge, and specialized skills needed to compete for good-paying jobs. That gives employers a stronger workforce and gives young Delawareans more ways to build a successful future.

The way we stop this negative feedback loop is by making targeted investments now—and measuring whether those investments improve reading, retain qualified educators, expand career opportunities, and give children a safe place to learn.

The Delaware Chancery Court in its 2020 landmark ruling recognized that more education funding is needed. The 2023 AIR report found that more education funding is needed. The 2026 PEFC recommendations concluded that more education funding is needed.

Fund Delaware's Future is working to deliver the strategic, transparent, and sustained investment needed to turn those findings into better outcomes for Delaware children and families.

Our coalition is focused on making sure Delaware invests in the future of our children and families without shifting the burden onto working families who are already struggling with the cost of living.

The final funding package should be developed openly and collaboratively by the Governor and General Assembly, with input from educators, families, employers, and communities across the state.

There are fair and broadly supported options to consider, from closing corporate loopholes to making sure major corporations and the wealthiest Delawareans—including households earning more than $500,000 per year—pay their fair share. These are just some tactics and updates among many others that Delaware can consider and pursue.

Delaware voters have made clear that they prefer closing corporate loopholes and asking the largest corporations and highest earners to contribute more—not raising sales, payroll, or property taxes that would fall more heavily on working families.

No one thinks it makes sense for a school teacher making $60,000 a year to pay the same tax rate as a CEO making $6 million, but that's essentially what happens under the current state tax code, which has not been properly updated in decades. That is neither fair nor suited to the needs of today's economy.

We're eager to work with state lawmakers to make sure our tax code is delivering the tools and opportunities that working families need to build a solid, stable future here in the First State.

That is a fair question. Fund Delaware's Future is not advocating for a blank check or simply spending more through the existing system. We are advocating for targeted investments, a more effective funding formula, clear public reporting, and measurable results.

Critics of the current system often point out that Delaware is among the top 15 states in per pupil spending while ranking in the bottom third when it comes to student test scores. Delaware ranks 42nd in preschool access for four-year-olds.

That comparison leaves out two important questions: which students require additional support, and does Delaware's funding system direct resources to the places where they are most needed.

According to the American Institutes for Research, Delaware has the highest percentage of students living in poverty, the highest percentage of English learners, and the lowest neighborhood income of any state in the Mid-Atlantic region. Delaware also ranks at the bottom of Mid-Atlantic states when it comes to teacher starting salaries. All regional states, including New England, that spend more than Delaware perform better on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in math and reading.

And yet, our current education funding formula does not fully account for the added support this high proportion of vulnerable students needs to reach grade-level proficiency. As a result, many Delaware schools—and entire school districts—are struggling to provide the resources students and educators need to improve outcomes.

More funding alone is not enough. New investments should come with:

• Clear goals, including improved reading and writing outcomes, stronger educator retention, expanded career credentials, and timely school repairs;
• Public reporting that allows families and taxpayers to see where money is going;
• Ongoing review of what programs are producing positive results and what efforts require reconsideration, additional support, or added accountability;
• Meaningful input from educators, students, families, and local communities.

Transparency, accountability and ongoing public input from educators, students, families, and our communities are absolutely necessary to ensure the investments we make in our future are delivering the results our children deserve.