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Class Size Issues Persist For Lawmakers

When Florida voters defeated a ballot measure that would have tweaked the state’s class size law, they defeated lawmakers’ best hope for fixing the Legislature’s persistent problem in funding a constitutional requirement for schools to cap individual classrooms at a certain size.

With the defeat of the amendment, lawmakers are trying to figure out their next move.

“That’s a question I don’t have an answer to yet,” said Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, who is slated to become Florida House Speaker in 2012 and who sponsored the proposed amendment in the House.

In 2002, voters approved a constitutional amendment that capped classroom sizes at 18 students in a classroom in lower grades, 22 in the middle grades and more than the current cap of 25 students in a high school classroom. Educators noted substantial educational gains as the class size caps were phased in, but lawmakers were faced with the growing problem of how to pay for it, particularly as the economy collapsed and state coffers grew thin.

Educators, in need of more funds to hire enough teachers to carry out the class size caps, were faced with a quandary. If their classrooms were at maximum capacity and a new student moved into the district, where would that student go?

The solution lawmakers came up with was a ballot measure – Amendment 8 – that would have allowed schools to continue to calculate class size caps at a school-wide average, rather than on a per-classroom basis, giving principals more flexibility to add students to their classes without violating the constitution.

On Election Night, 55 percent of voters voted in favor of the measure, 5 percent short of the required 60 percent threshold for proposed constitutional amendments.

The state teachers’ union has staunchly defended the original class size provision, arguing that the softening of the law is merely the Legislature backing out of a promise to fund the schools to a point where they can meet the hard caps. The problem of an extra student moving into a district could be fixed statutorily, they argued, but the Legislature has largely rejected that plan.

“I don’t know how they’re going to respond to the class size, whether they’ll try to wiggle out of it again,” said Florida Education Association spokesman Mark Pudlow.
Classroom caps have been phased in since the 2002 passage of the constitutional amendment, but this fall, the hard caps were put into full effect. Schools that are not in compliance with the law could face fines for the violation.

Administrators across the state largely supported the amendment, despite the FEA”s opposition to the proposal. Florida Association of District School Superintendents executive director Bill Montford, who was also elected to the state Senate on Tuesday, said the failure of the amendment means superintendents will have to make a lot of “tough decisions” and that he doesn’t really know whether lawmakers will try to address it or just leave it be.

“It has been the opinion each year, each session, that there is not a statutory fix,” Montford said. “At least that has been the opinion of the Legislature. However, with the defeat of Amendment 8, I’m certain that issue will come up within the legislative session. What do we do now? Do we try to craft a statutory fix and see if it will stand up?”

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, who sponsored the Senate version of the amendment, said he thinks it would be difficult for the lawmakers to legally make a statutory change “to try to dilute the voters’ decision” and that he, at least, would not be sponsoring another ballot measure on class size.

“I believe that the issue is now settled and the losers will be parents and teachers and taxpayers, but that’s the constitution,” he said.

Weatherford said it was likely that lawmakers would discuss a variety of options on how to address class size obstacles when the Legislature returns to Tallahassee this spring for its regular session. The legislative body could pass a statutory measure, he said, but that doesn’t mean its constitutional.

“At the end of the day, the court will probably decide what these caps really mean,” he said.

By Kathleen Haughney
The News Service Florida