Meek rallies Dems to defend class size caps

In 2010, Floridians might get the opportunity to vote on Congressman Kendrick Meek’s vision for public education: twice.

As the state legislature faces a potential $6 billion shortfall next year, GOP lawmakers want citizens to reconsider the 2002 public school class size amendment that Meek championed.

A constitutional amendment sponsored by Rep. Will Weatherford (R-Wesley Chapel), calls for class sizes to be capped at the national average instead of the hard, inflexible numbers adopted seven years ago. If approved by both legislative chambers with a three-fifths vote, the measure would come to the polls in November 2010.

Meek, who is currently seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate, is asking his party members to hold the line. In letters to Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson and House Democratic Leader Franklin Sands, he emphasized that “the conversation comes down to one discussion: cost versus priority.”

“I’ve always said the Class Size Reduction is not the magic bullet for education,” he said. “But, it is a necessary tool in the arsenal."

At the end of 2002, when the Class Size amendment passed, Florida’s educational system was struggling in the 40’s of just about every state educational ranking in the nation," Meek continued. "It is not by happenstance or coincidence that that every since then, Florida has moved up in two of the most well-respected rankings: Morgan Quitno’s ‘Smartest States’ ranking, where Florida has moved from 42nd to 26th in 2008 and Education Week’s ‘Quality Counts’ ranking, where Florida achieved huge leaps in just the past the past three rankings going from 31st to 10th as class sizes have gotten smaller.”

Meek has spent much of his political career courting working and middle class voters who feel that the GOP-led legislature is starving public education. Back in 2002, 2.5 million citizens supported the class size amendment despite vigorous opposition from then-Gov. Jeb Bush.

Read the full text of Meek’s letters here.

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