House would let class sizes grow

The Georgia House has voted to relax limits on high school class sizes. Without this leeway, “We’d force the systems to go to 28 [students] without any flexibility,” said House Education Committee Chairman Brooks Coleman (R-Duluth). “Immediately, they’d have to have extra classrooms, find extra teachers. We have not provided funds locally for this.”

The bill, as passed, would allow up to 32 students in most high school academic classes.

Democrats called the bill hypocritical. Rep. Kathy Ashe (D-Atlanta) recalled the “Sonny Did” commercials from Gov. Sonny Perdue’s re-election campaign.

“For too long, no one did enough to improve education in Georgia, until Sonny did,” she quoted. “Test scores are going up and class sizes are going down. That’s what Sonny did. Why would we ever go back?”

The bill still needs Senate approval.