The Delaware Joint Finance Committee completely cut the State Board of Education out of the budget for FY2018. Also gone is the Teacher Resource Center. To repeat, as of July 1st, the State Board of Education in Delaware will be NO MORE! Other pass-through programs have been cut as well. So far, ten million has been cut in pass-through programs.
This will give the Delaware Secretary of Education, currently Dr. Susan Bunting, will have sole authority to approve or deny charter school applications, modifications, renewals, as well as regulations and any district restructuring in Delaware. This is big folks!
Updated, 7:29pm: From what I’m hearing, all these changes to the State Board of Education will be included in the epilogue language of the FY2018 budget. It will give Secretary Bunting sole authority over anything the State Board of Education had a vote for. This also includes appeals, i.e. Patrick Wahl’s fight with Brandywine’s Board of Education went to appeal with the State Board of Ed and he won. The Secretary would approve or deny any charter applications, revocations, formal review status, and minor AND major modifications. Regulations brought forth by the Dept. of Education and the Professional Standards Board would be handled by the Secretary as well.
This is a major shift in how Delaware education operates in this state. I included a list of ALL the cuts and reductions in another post with amounts for each. Which also included $1.5 million in cuts for the implementation of a Delaware Dept. of Education Employee Reduction Plan.
More information as it becomes available.
The Season Of Myths 
This will require major code changes as SBOE acts as an appellate court for district BOE decisions. I am skeptical they are gone. very.
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How much $$ could be saved if those from DoE who visit schools to evaluate how well common core is being implemented lost their funding?
Seriously- this whole process is a game, and we can’t afford any more games in DE education.
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