How packed is your child’s classroom?

It depends on where you live, but most supporters of Initiative 1351 say classrooms are too full and compromising public education.

The measure would force lawmakers to find the money to hire teachers and reduce the student-to-teacher ratio, but opponents say this is a waste of time.

The “Yes on I-1351” campaign claims we are 47th in the nation for class size, a statistic they got from the Washington Education Association, which estimates there are 18 students per teacher in a classroom.

I-1351 would shrink that to as little as 15 students per teacher in Kindergarten through 3rd grade and would cap 4th through 12th grade classrooms to 25 students.

Lawmakers have already made progress in shrinking Kindergarten through 3rd grade classrooms through the McCleary Decision, in which the supreme court ruled the state must fully fund public education. Classroom reductions in upper grades would also happen.

But campaign manager Mary Howes is tired of waiting.

“This initiative is absolutely in line with the state’s obligation to fund education. If the state was meeting their supreme court obligation and fully funding eduction, we wouldn’t be 47th in class size. This is just simply a part of it,” says Howes. “It’s also phased in over four years. It’s a pretty modest proposal. Again, it brings us from 47th in the nation to just about average.”

By some estimates, I-1351 would cost $2 billion. So, where’s that money going to come from? The initiative does not address that, but Howes says that’s the lawmakers’ job.

“It’s the state’s job to figure out how they’re going to fully fund education,” she says. “All this initiative does is says when you do that, make sure that you address the needs of the students and get them out of some of the most crowded schools in nation.”

The “No on I-1351” campaign says the measure would only distract from what lawmakers are already working towards via the McCleary decision.

“This initiative really only addresses the upper grades,” contends Jami Lund, a volunteer with the “No on I-1351” campaign. “The legislature has already adopted a law to add to the number of teachers that are employed in early grades. So the only unique piece you get to pass this initiative, is different class sizes in upper grades, where the research shows it doesn’t even matter.”

How does Lund know reduced class sizes in upper grades didn’t matter?

“The state commissioned the Washington Institute for Public Policy to do an analysis of studies on class size,” Lund explains. “The results that they released a year ago show that class size in the early grades makes some difference. Class size in the upper grades, however, makes barely 55 percent of difference.”

That seemed vague, so I looked into that study. It turns out that yes, the policy center did find that efforts to reduce class sizes in upper grades did not produce a favorable outcome, but that’s only if you compare money with benefits.

The study found that to reduce a class size by just one student per classroom it would cost the state more than what would be considered beneficial.

Voters have to decide what they consider beneficial: The Yes on I-1351 campaign would like voters to give lawmakers another shove in the direction of funding education by reducing class sizes first.

No on I-1351 would like voters to trust that lawmakers are fulfilling their constitutional duty and will fully fund education by the court-appointed deadline of 2017.