COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina House added some aspects of the education reform bill to the budget proposal during the last week of the session.
Democratic Representative Russell Ott got approval on a budget amendment to make class sizes smaller in South Carolina schools.
His amendment deleted a recession-era budget proviso that allowed districts to ignore a state law that limited class sizes.
Ott said districts will have to hire new teachers to meet the student - teacher ratios or apply to the state's Department of Education for a waiver if they can't afford a teacher.
"When we were discussing and debating it yesterday, everyone acknowledged that the fewer students that you put into a classroom per teacher is a good thing. The more individualized attention that a teacher is able to give a student, it helps that student," Ott said Thursday.
Republican Representative Rita Allison added an amendment to reduce the amount of formative testing in the schools, which was another common criticism from teachers.
"When I looked at their calendars, there is a tremendous amount of formative testing going on," Allison said on Thursday.
At the moment, the House and Senate are also split on how much state testing to remove.
"So, the amendment that we put in yesterday just says we're not doing away with formative, we're just saying to limit it to at least one formative test in each grade a year," Allison continued.
The Senate voted to not go along with the House's amendments on Wednesday, sending the budget to a conference committee.
Allison said the General Assembly will most likely reconvene in May for a special session to vote on the committee's version of the budget.