By partnering with education nonprofit DonorsChoose to pair professional development with classroom resources, state departments of education are achieving learning outcomes at accelerated rates while honoring the autonomy of teachers and the individual needs of each student.
The Challenge: Accelerate literacy outcomes across the state
After his election in late 2024, Governor Matt Meyer spent the first 100 days of his term tackling the issues he found to be most urgent – and that meant declaring a statewide literacy emergency. As the Delaware Department of Education knew all too well, students across Delaware were struggling to hit reading goals, while their teachers lacked the resources and materials to support their success. Improving literacy outcomes across subject and grade level would take a comprehensive program that provides teachers with access to both professional development around The Science of Learning and additional classroom resources. And, as every good teacher knows, those new lessons would need some way to be put into action in order to drive a truly successful campaign.
DDOE also identified 66 schools as needing extra literacy support. Wanting to make sure the students with the highest need got additional support, they knew that designating funding specifically towards those schools would prove crucial to accomplishing statewide literacy outcomes.
The Solution: Use DonorsChoose to turn professional learning into classroom action
DonorsChoose is a nonprofit that gives public school teachers the ability to request resources that will help their students learn, and connects them with supporters eager to bring their ideas to life. Since our founding in 2000, 6.6 million donors have contributed $1.9 billion, bringing nearly 3.5 million teacher requests to life. Our platform is easy to use and provides an ongoing resource for teachers beyond dedicated campaigns. Our focus on trust and integrity has consistently earned us top ratings from charity watchdogs like Charity Navigator.
The Delaware Department of Education worked with our team to create a multi-pronged initiative, integrating our partnership into a broader state strategy including professional development and coaching. DonorsChoose served as the mechanism for translating lessons learned in those courses and coaching sessions into direct classroom implementation. DDOE worked with expert teachers to develop recommended literacy resources and bundles, and teachers were encouraged to select from vetted materials aligned with the Science of Reading.
On October 10, DDOE launched the initiative. Every public school teacher was eligible to participate, regardless of grade level or subject area, and was encouraged to apply literacy strategies across disciplines (like math teacher Ms. Lockerd, who created a project to help students decode word problems). Each participating teacher received a donation of up to $750 to fund their classroom project. $1.1 million of the total $3 million was allocated for 66 schools identified as needing the most literacy support, ensuring students with the highest needs were especially uplifted.
The Results: Rapid allocation of funds focused on literacy in 10 days
Our partnership was able to fund $3 million for literacy-focused classroom projects, allocating the majority of those funds within only the first 10 days of launch. 4,251 teachers and projects received funding – that's more than half of all public school teachers in the state of Delaware, with 244 schools participating in total. By pairing professional learning with classroom resources, and respecting the autonomy and needs of working teachers, the Delaware Department of Education proved how combining a top-down change with bottom-up empowerment can enhance student learning.
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