Senator Buckson releases statement regarding Tuesday's Senate plenary debate and resolution
Dover, Del. – On Wednesday, March 6, 2024, U.S. Sen. Eric Buckson (R-South Dover) issued the following statement:
“For the past five months or so, I have worked with the Senate and House education committee chairs, members of both political parties, and many members of the public to create a task force to investigate classroom behavior and discipline. We have been drafting Senate Concurrent Resolution 117 in our public schools. During these thoughtful conversations, suggestions were made and we were asked to change some of the language in the first draft. On nearly every occasion, I have respected these requests and created cooperative and bipartisan measures. The language I have chosen to retain is that the House and Senate minority leadership It allowed them to appoint special committee members to the convention. Democratic leadership objected to this, believing they needed to appoint all members themselves. To me, this was a big deal. It shows that many want complete control, something I have expressed deep concerns about in the past.
“Unfortunately, because of the actions of Senate Majority Leader Brian Townsend and Democratic senators, the actions of my colleagues in the House and Senate Democratic caucuses, as well as bipartisan members of Congress and members of the public education community. was completely ignored.
“On Tuesday, just before the Senate convened, Senator Townsend requested a meeting with me. What I expected to be a productive meeting turned into an outrageous act of political coercion. Townsend. said he had created a new resolution and essentially asked me to join him in moving away from the resolution that he and others had been working on for months. He claimed to have been contacted by a member who did so, but his concerns were not relayed to me.Additionally, those concerns, upon scrutiny on the Senate floor, were found to be unfounded.
“Let me be clear: If Senator Townsend had asked me to work with him on potential changes, I would have said yes. chose to move forward, ignoring our efforts and giving the impression that we don't matter. This led to his resolution reducing the number of educators appointed to the task force and This was further substantiated by the fact that they would hire government bureaucrats instead. This is something my determination purposely avoided.
“For nearly a decade, one-party control has had complete control of the Department of Education. During that time, student performance has steadily declined and working conditions for educators have worsened. So much so that we fail to see the importance of removing disruptive students for long periods of time and allowing schools to provide them with the resources they need while the remaining students continue to move forward. They replaced the three Rs of learning (reading, writing, and math) with DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), but they didn't realize there was a difference between the acronyms when it came to basic learning in school. Educators are so overburdened that they don't have enough time to actually teach.
“That being said, not all elected Democrats should fall into this category, and many Democrats in Delaware feel the same way I do. Let us denounce the theft of important resolutions while remaining focused on our mission to restore structure and accountability to our schools so our children can feel safe and learn.”
Sen. Eric Buckson represents the 16th party.th He is a senator district representative and a retired public educator.
