Improved FCAT scores show class-size benefits

Last school year, 24 percent of Palm Beach County third-graders failed the reading FCAT. This school year, according to preliminary results, 20 percent failed. The most important factor behind the welcome improvement? More money and smaller classes.

Most third-graders who can't pass the reading FCAT have to repeat the grade. To reduce the number of retentions, districts such as Palm Beach have sent more reading teachers into the poorest-performing schools, which tend to have the most low-income and minority students. Lawmakers excusing themselves for shortchanging school budgets often scoff at the idea that they could solve problems by "throwing money" at them. Sometimes, as these improving scores show, that's what works.

School districts are learning that lesson, but Tallahassee isn't. When Gov. Bush campaigned to defeat the class-size amendment in 2002, state economists predicted that implementing it would cost $12.1 billion by the 2010 school year. But a Palm Beach Post analysis shows that in the past two years, Gov. Bush and lawmakers have spent less than 12 percent of what had been projected. And this year's proposed budgets would give public schools just 0.2 percent of the $2.7 billion the class-size amendment had been projected to cost in the 2005-2006 school year.

Rather than pay for the class-size amendment, Gov. Bush and the Legislature have forced districts to cut electives and programs, calculating that the pain will persuade voters to repeal the smaller-class requirements. That stick hasn't worked. So Gov. Bush has offered a carrot: Weaken the amendment in return for higher teacher salaries. But that is in trouble because it would shortchange South Florida, where salaries already are at the level he proposes.

A fairer compromise is available. Gov. Bush already has proposed letting districts keep the flexibility to channel extra resources to low-performing schools -- flexibility they will lose as the amendment is phased in. But his plan, which measures class size by district average rather than individual classrooms, is too loose. Allow averages, but limit how much any individual class could exceed the ideal size. All classes from kindergarten through third grade should be kept at 18, the limit under the amendment. The state, as it did before North Florida got power in the Legislature, should recognize that the much-higher cost of living in South Florida justifies an equivalently higher per-student payment. If Gov. Bush and the Legislature don't offer honest financing, a more reasonable compromise on class-size and fair budgets for South Florida, voters should turn down any attempt to repeal the current class-size rules.