The Florida Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments Oct. 6 in a case challenging a proposed state constitutional amendment that would loosen Florida’s strict class-size limits.
The Florida Education Association contends that the proposal’s ballot title and summary are misleading because they don’t say that the measure’s chief purpose is to change school funding. It wants to block the counting of ballots, since it is too late to take the measure off the November ballot. Supporters of the measure say the existing class-size amendment that Florida voters passed in 2002 is too expensive and rigid. A lower-court judge sided with state officials earlier this month, but the teachers’ union appealed.
Florida currently caps class sizes at 18 students in kindergarten through 3rd grade, 22 students in 4th through 8th grade, and 25 students in high school. The proposed amendment would allow those numbers to be met by schoolwide averages, rather than at the classroom level, and would raise the per-class caps to 21, 27, and 30, respectively.
