By Kathleen Haughney
The News Service of Florida
For school administrators, convincing lawmakers of the need to loosen class size limits was the easy part. Convincing parents, teachers and other voters now looms as the far more difficult task.
Supporters of the change still must capture the attention of a fickle electorate and persuade 60 percent of them to vote to change the constitution. A Ron Sachs Communications/Mason-Dixon poll released Wednesday shows voters virtually divided on the issue. The poll, which surveyed 625 registered voters from May 3 to May 5, found that 44 percent of the voters favored the change and 39 percent opposed it, while 17 percent remain undecided. There was a 4 percent margin of error.
“It’s going to be difficult to pass, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” said Wayne Blanton, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association, which supports the change.
The issue has split the education community, with the teachers’ union largely opposed to any changes to the class size caps put in the constitution eight years ago, while administrators and school boards have sought the changes, saying the current law places a virtual stranglehold on school districts. And all sides are amping up to mount a public relations campaign to reach the voters.
In 2002, Florida voters overwhelmingly approved an amendment to cap class sizes at 18 students for kindergarten through third grade, 22 in fourth through eighth grade, and 25 in high school. Smaller classes have been phased in since 2002, but at the start of the 2010 school year, every classroom will have to meet those hard caps.
The joint resolution would roll back the requirement so that class size would be calculated at a grade-level average, not an individual classroom cap, allowing some classes to go above the original capped number.
Blanton said the school boards and the administrators would be working jointly to get information to parents about the change and talking to local newspaper editorial boards. Language included in the recently approved state budget would also require districts to hold public hearings on the potential class size change.
“I think our movement is going to be working from a grassroots type movement to get the word out at the local level,” he said. “We think the people who run the schools are the best to tell the people about the flexibility that they need.”
School principals have said they fear that the hard caps would back them into a corner if they were at maximum capacity and just one more student moved into the district. If all third grade classes were at 18 students and a student moved into the district, administrators said they believed they would have to break up a class or bus that student to another school.
The state’s largest teachers’ union, the Florida Education Association, has been the prime opponent of the measure, pointing to improved test scores as a result of smaller class sizes.
“I don’t hear teachers coming up to me and saying ‘boy we need more kids in our classes,'” said FEA spokesman Mark Pudlow. “And I don’t hear parents saying we need more kids in the classroom.”
Pudlow said the union is still developing a campaign strategy to beat back the proposal, but that it will likely involve a statewide advertising campaign. The proposed amendment is just one of several set to appear on the November ballot along with the U.S. Senate race, the gubernatorial contest and three Cabinet races.
“We’re just going to be battling for air time and battling for the attention of the voters on this, but certainly, it’s going to be a slog,” Pudlow said.
