Education

Extreme Makeover
Delaware’s Vision 2015 sets far-reaching goals to upgrade public schools

The state wants its public schools to be the world’s best.

When The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century hit bookstores in 2005, it was a wake-up call for many in American business. According to author Thomas L. Friedman, populous nations such as India and China were using technology to hone competitiveness and create a generation of highly educated workers.

“From a business perspective, that’s when it really started to hit home,” recalls Paul A. Herdman, president and chief executive officer at the Rodel Foundation of Delaware. “There was a sense that our kids are going to be competing with those in Bangalore just as much as they are with kids in Baltimore.”

That realization was the catalyst for Vision 2015, Delaware’s landmark initiative to transform public education in the state. Led by a 28-person steering committee of education, business, government and community leaders, the effort reached a milestone in October 2006 with completion of a 36-page plan to:

• Set high standards for all students

• Invest deeply in early childhood education

• Develop and support great teachers

• Empower principals

• Engage families, businesses and the community

• Require accountability

Rethinking Funding, stressing Technology

Vision 2015 breaks the mold in a number of areas, especially in terms of education funding. One recommendation involves a weighted model that allocates additional resources for students performing far below their grade level – or above it.

That’s an idea embraced with gusto by Marvin N. “Skip” Schoenhals, head of WSFS Financial Corp. and Vision 2015 chairman. “If as a society we’re dead serious about educating children up to a minimum standard, then we have to recognize that it costs different amounts of money to educate different kinds of children,” Schoenhals says.

At Rodel Foundation, Herdman observes, “We’re still teaching students in a 30-by-30 classroom. Meanwhile, these kids are on iPods and designing music and artwork online. There is a big disconnect in terms of how we deliver education and how these kids are actually learning and doing work so it’s fun in their everyday lives. We think that there could be a lot of work done to create a heavier use of technology so it better fits this iPod generation.”

Business Community and State on Board

Launched with the help of about $3 million from Rodel, Vision 2015 now enjoys sponsorship by more than 20 corporations, including all members of the Delaware Business Roundtable.

“The business community gets this notion of needing to be internationally competitive in a millisecond,” Herdman says. “They can be running a small business or a big business, but they get the fact that we need fantastic talent to be competitive.”

Schoenhals says it’s a matter of economic development, whether the state is working to recruit new business and industry or whether existing enterprises are working to recruit the best and brightest workers. “When we’re recruiting business executives, one of the key questions that comes up is, ‘What are the schools like in Delaware?’ It is an absolute ingredient in recruiting talented people to work for us.”

The state government is very much on board, too. Gov. Ruth Ann Minner has termed Vision 2015 “a bold, creative blueprint to support our goal of making our schools the best in the world.” And in June 2007, she established the Leadership for Education Achievement in Delaware Committee to develop specific proposals for potential state support.

The committee, which goes by the acronym of LEAD, is a nine-member subset of the Vision 2015 steering committee; both Herdman and Schoenhals are members.

The next step? Between 15 and 20 schools will be prepared to implement some of Vision 2015’s elements when the 2008-09 school year commences. “From an economic, productivity point of view, as well as having good citizens coming out of our schools, we have to do this,” Schoenhals says.

Story by Sharon H. Fitzgerald

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