Tom Carper’s Record on Public Education

WASHINGTON, DC – To improve opportunity for all children, our nation must respond to the call for higher standards, tougher accountability, broader local control, and greater choice in our public schools. Under Tom Carper’s leadership, Delaware helped lead a nationwide movement for change in the way we educate America’s children. As a five-term Member of Congress, two-term Governor, past Chairman of the National Governors Association and now, as a United States Senator, Tom Carper has consistently made raising student achievement his top priority. The first bill he sponsored in the Senate (S-98) aims to triple the number of charter schools by 2005 and make district-wide public school choice available to students trapped in failing schools nationwide. In reforming public education, Delaware lived up to its name – The First State. Under Carper, Delaware became the first state to:

• Put into place a comprehensive system of standards, accountability and local control
• Offer universal public school choice.
• Wire every classroom to the Internet. Delaware has the best ratio of students to computers in all of America.
• Fully fund Head Start for every four-year-old living in poverty.

Senator Carper’s other achievements in Delaware include:

• Reducing class sizes in the early grades.
• Boosting teacher salaries and tying teacher pay to performance.
• Improving teacher training.
• Moving to end the failed practice of social promotion.
• Raising scores in math and reading across the board in every county and every school district in Delaware.