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Capitol
2010 Legislative Preview: Setting the Table
A look at the key issues that will shape the next session, which starts in March.
Education
“The schools are begging for relief,” says Sen. Mike Bennett. [Photo: iStock] |
Retooling Class Size
Lawmakers will take another stab at modifying class-size rules that cap classes at 18 students for kindergarten through third grade, 22 in grades four through eight and 25 in high school. While the limits have been phased in slowly and calculated on a school-average basis, the law requires schools to move to actual classroom counts this fall — a move that worries many Florida school boards and superintendents, among others.
Rep. Will Weatherford (R-Wesley Chapel) says he plans to reintroduce legislation passed by the House last year, largely along partisan lines, that would measure class size by school average, rather than on a per-class basis. Sen. Don Gaetz (R-Niceville) plans to introduce a similar measure in the Senate.
Sen. Mike Bennett (R-Bradenton) has introduced legislation (S 738) asking voters to decide if they want to repeal the class-size rules outright. “It’s not working out the way we thought it would,” Bennett recently told the St. Petersburg Times. “The costs are out of control. The schools are begging for relief. We didn’t give them enough flexibility in it.”
Mark Pudlow, a spokesman for the Florida Education Association, says complaints over the costs of implementing the class size amendment that voters added to the constitution in 2002 are disingenuous at best. “We just got out of a special session where the state committed all kinds of money to build trains. I just think it speaks to the commitment, or lack thereof, of some in the Legislature to public education.”
Continued Pudlow: “It is expensive, but we have to have priorities in the state, and public education hasn’t been a huge priority. When you compare our spending to spending by other states, we’re near the bottom, but we’re near the top for law enforcement and corrections. We make our priorities, but I think it’s time public education becomes a priority. We’ll fight this fight.”
Kill the FCAT?
State Democrats want to replace the FCAT with a broader set of measurements. |
House Democrats want to dump the FCAT and create a new set of comprehensive end-of-course exams in a variety of subjects and expand the way schools are held accountable by focusing on the entirety of a students’ work throughout the year, in addition to the subject-area assessment tests.
“Our bill puts children first by giving parents, school professionals and the education community the power to work out a plan that everyone can buy into,” said Rep. Dwight Bullard (D-Miami), a teacher from Miami and the lead Democrat on pre-K through 12 education policy matters. One bill sponsored by Bullard would phase out the FCAT in the 2014-15 school year.