Legislature’s class-size ballot question challenged as misleading; judge to rule by Friday
September 8th, 2010
TALLAHASSEE — A teachers union lawyer told a circuit judge Wednesday that a proposed class-size amendment should be thrown off the Nov. 2 ballot for the same reason that the state Supreme Court recently struck three other amendments — because the ballot language is misleading about its purpose.
In this case, Florida Education Association attorney Ron Meyer argued, the ballot language doesn’t make clear that the purpose is to reduce the state’s cost of paying for public schools.
But the lawyer for the state said Amendment 8 is just what it appears to be — a proposal that would give school districts the flexibility they say they need by limiting class sizes at the school level rather than at the classroom level as the constitution currently requires.
Charles Frances, the chief circuit judge for Leon County, said he hoped to rule on the case by Friday, and both sides have promised to appeal to the Florida Supreme Court for a final decision before the Nov. 2 election. It’s too late to remove the item from the ballot because ballots have already been printed but the court could order supervisors of elections not to tally the votes if it is ultimately tossed.
Meyer referred to Republican lawmakers’ frequent complaints that the current class-size standards are too costly and argued that the measure they placed on the ballot is misleading because it fails to inform voters that, if passed, it would undo the requirement that lawmakers give “adequate funding” to schools to reduce class sizes, which he said was “at the heart” of the 2002 amendment that created the class-size restrictions.
“Amendment 8 changes all that. You don’t know that by looking at the ballot summary. You don’t know that by looking at the ballot title,” Meyer said. “That change inescapably changes the funding. The voter doesn’t know that. The voter doesn’t see that. The voter doesn’t get that.”
But Jon Glogau, a lawyer in Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office defending the state in the lawsuit, argued that it is “pure speculation” that funding for schools will decrease if the amendment passes.
“This case is not about adequacy of school funding,” Glogau said. “I don’t know what he’s talking about … The chief purpose of this amendment is to change the caps. It’s patently obvious.”
Current class size rules cap classes at 18 students in Pre-K through third grade, 22 students in grades 4 through 8, and 25 students in high school. Amendment 8 would loosen the standards by applying those limits to school averages rather than individual classrooms; it also would set higher limits for individual classrooms: caps of 21 (K-3), 27 (4-8) and 30 (high school).
The Palm Beach County School District, like the rest of the districts in the state, has chosen not to meet the standards that were required by the start of school this year. Palm Beach County schools need an additional 800 to 900 teachers to meet the standards, and Schools Superintendent Art Johnson has said the district would pin its hopes on voters relaxing the law in November rather than raising taxes or making the other cuts necessary to find the $59 million needed to hire that many teachers.
Of the six amendments the legislature had placed on the Nov. 2 ballot, three have already been struck by the state Supreme Court on the grounds that their ballot summaries were misleading. Meyer was the attorney for the challenging group in one of those cases; he successfully used the argument in challenging the legislature’s amendment regarding the way legislative and Congressional districts are drawn.
What’s at stake
- For core classes, school districts were supposed to have met strict limits on individual class sizes by the start of school this August: 18 students in kindergarten through third grade, 22 in fourth through eighth grade and 25 in high school.
- If voters approve Amendment 8, those same limits would be applied on a school-wide average rather than to each individual class. In addition, individual classes would have caps of 21 (K-3), 27 (4-8) and 30 (high school).
- For example, under the proposal, the average size of an elementary school’s K-3 classes could not be more than 18 students, and no single class could have more than 21 students.
- The new standards would be made retroactive to the start of the 2010-2011 school year.
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Tags: Judge, Misleading Judge
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