Is it classroom size an issue at public universities too?

Majority Supports Amendment 8, But Classrooms Will Remain The Same

By Luis Roca

November 4, 2010

Despite the support of the majority, Amendment 8 failed on Tuesday’s election. The proposed adjustment on the ballots was looking to alter the restrictions on classroom size for public schools.

From the total votes, 54.5%, or 2,626,241 of the votes in Florida, said yes to the change. However, it was not enough to make it happen, since the State Constitution requires at least a 60% endorsement for any amendment to be approved.

In Miami-Dade County along, the unofficial results showed some contrast with the total results for Florida with a rejection to the amendment of 54.81% and approval of only 45.19%.

The Republican-sponsored Amendment was created to alter the limits of the previous Class Size Amendment, which was voted and approved in the elections of 2002 in response to over-crowded classrooms.

On Tuesday, In Miami-Dade 197,466 constituents voted yes to reverse the previous limitation and allow core classes like English and Math to have more than 18 students in lower grades, more than 22 in middle grades and more than 25 in high school.

Amendment 8 was trying to ease the cap system allowing schools to calculate the class size by school wide-average instead of per classroom basis.

Currently, if a public school permits more students that what the class size cap established in the Class Size Amendment it could be subject to fines. However, the imposition of fines was recently approved on spring of 2010 by the State legislature and the determination and sanctioning of such infractions has been difficult to comply.

Some public schools had argued that if they get one or more students than what the cap system determines, they will need to open a new class, divide the students and hire new professors.

According to a Miami Beach public school worker in order to do that they will need to receive more funding.

At the same time the Florida Schools Board Association argue that fines to certain schools in certain districts will be against the State law that requires the districts to be funded equally.

For Jeanette Williams a retired professor, one of the problems, when it comes to class size, is determining the actual number of students without counting those who drop-out, don’t ever show up to class or missed the first day.

“The idea is not to over expend in professors and infrastructures when is not need it,” Williams said.

In Miami Beach Maria Alicia Nunez, the mother of a senior student at Miami Beach Senior High School went to vote on Tuesday for first time. She said it was a bit of a surprise to find amendment 8 on the ballot since she had not heard anything about it previously.

“I voted no because it doesn’t make sense for me to allow more students in classroom that are already super populated,” Nunez said.

Although Amendment 8 aimed to give more flexibility to the public schools fiscal responsibility in a time of economic stress it fail short to convince voters, who are also tax payers, that the number of students in a classrooms do not need to be established in the State Constitution but determine by lawmakers.

With the results on Tuesday election looks like keeping the state budget low is secondary for Floridians when it comes to the education of the children. However, the class-size issues will persists in the State.