Addressing Delaware’s Deepening Education Crisis: A Call to Action

Leaders and parents in Delaware are calling for urgent, collective action and increased accountability to address what they describe as a crisis within the state’s education system. In a response to an April 30 op-ed by Ben duPont, Darius Brown and Michelle A. Taylor argued on May 7, 2026, that the state can no longer accept incremental change or marginal gains while students continue to struggle.

Brown, who has a career in public service and policy, and Taylor, a parent of three, stated that while many passionate individuals have attempted to improve the system, those efforts have frequently remained fragmented and siloed. They asserted that the failure to improve outcomes is a failure of the adults involved in the system.

The call for reform is supported by data regarding student literacy. According to the May 7 opinion piece, only 26% of Delaware fourth graders read proficiently, with a significant number of students falling below basic levels.

Further national data reflects a broader decline in performance. The 2024 Nation’s Report Card, administered by the U.S. Department of Education as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), found that only 35% of high school seniors scored proficient in reading. This represents the lowest level of proficiency recorded since the test began in 1992.

Tim Daly, CEO of EdNavigator and former president of The New Teacher Project, noted in a commentary for Education Next that there are now significantly more children who are functionally illiterate.

The NAEP reading framework defines students performing below the basic level as those who struggle with everyday literacy tasks, such as interpreting a speech, understanding news articles, or following written directions.

Systemic Challenges and Bureaucracy

Critics of the current system argue that the decline in academic performance is linked to an expansion of the school’s role beyond its original mission of teaching. Nancy Mercante, founder and president of Citizens for Delaware Schools, wrote on October 21, 2025, that schools have increasingly taken on responsibilities including the promotion of social programs through diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, medical and mental health services, and the use of restorative justice to manage student behavior.

Mercante argued that these additional roles have led to several negative outcomes for the classroom environment:

• An increase in the number of school administrators.
• The expansion of school bureaucracy.
• A reduction in the amount of time teachers are able to focus on instruction.

Mercante described the literacy and math crisis in Delaware as a state and national tragedy that diminishes the potential and opportunity of generations of children, noting that the state has seen a 12-year decline.

Calls for Accountability

The consensus among these advocates is that declaring a literacy emergency is insufficient without decisive action. Brown and Taylor emphasized that the education crisis is not solely a government, education, or family problem, but rather a systemic failure requiring a unified path forward.

They argued that the urgency of the situation precludes further delay, stating that the children currently in the system do not have time for incremental improvements.

The data is clear, the urgency is real and on one point there should be no debate: our children deserve better.

Michelle A. Taylor and Darius Brown