Gov. Ruth Ann Minner opened the first year of her second and final term with promises to ratchet up accountability for teachers, push for a new college-scholarship program, and add mathematics specialists to low-performing middle schools.
Ms. Minner, who is limited to serving two terms, outlined her plans for education and other policy areas in her Jan. 25 State of the State Address to a joint session of the Delaware legislature.
Without offering details, the Democrat said in her speech that a decade-long effort to improve public schools will not be complete until teachers are also held accountable. “I plan to have a teacher-accountability system in place in time for the start of the 2005-06 school year,” she said.
Read the text of Gov. Minner’s address.
Her budget blueprint, which was to be released late last week, will also include funding to put math specialists in the 22 middle schools with the lowest scores on state math tests. Math, the governor said, “is an area where we are not doing as well as we could.”
In addition, Gov. Miner said her budget would propose a plan to phase in voluntary full-day kindergarten statewide by 2008, as well as funding to create scholarships to cover community college tuition for qualified students.
