Education finance reform in Florida

Upon his reelection, the man who has successfully campaigned twice for Florida's governorship on a platform of tax cuts and competition for public dollars faced a constitutional requirement to significantly reduce school class sizes. When voters reelected Jeb Bush in 2002 for a second term in Tallahassee, they also approved a constitutional requirement mandating class size reduction. This mandate requires that schools and school districts hire teachers and construct new classrooms and schools, and it would cost between $8 billion and $27 billion to implement, according to the governor and others who opposed the proposal.