Schools

Proposal would loosen class limits

Schools would get more wiggle room under the proposed constitutional amendment.

By Associated press
Published January 12, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - Class size limits that Florida voters approved in 2002 would be loosened through a constitutional amendment introduced Friday by a tax and budget overhaul panel.

The Taxation and Budget Reform Commission is picking up where the Republican-controlled Legislature left off on the issue. Then-Gov. Jeb Bush, also a Republican, and GOP lawmakers began trying to modify the limits almost immediately after the citizen initiative passed, arguing it would be too expensive.

Democrats opposed changes, and the last legislative proposal failed in 2006, Bush's final year in office, by four votes in the Senate as moderate Republicans joined the opposition. Gov. Charlie Crist, also a Republican, has supported class size funding.

The 2002 amendment limits classes to 18 students in kindergarten through third grade, 22 in fourth through eighth grade and 25 in high school, beginning with the 2010-11 school year.

In the meantime, it is being phased in. Schools first had to meet the limits on a districtwide average basis and currently must meet them as a school average.

The new proposal would keep the school average requirement. Individual classrooms, though, would have a "hard cap" of five students above the average.

Associations representing school boards and administrators support the change. They argue the current limits are too rigid.

The statewide teachers union, the Florida Education Association, is against the proposal but is working with legislators, instead, to make the limits more flexible through state law rather than a constitutional change.

The commission's Governmental Service Committee voted 6-1 to introduce the proposed amendment. It will return to committee for more discussion, possible modification and approval before going before the full commission, which could put it on the November ballot.

[Last modified January 11, 2008, 23:39:01]