FORT MYERS, Fla. - The class size amendment is intended to improve the quality of education, but Call For Action finds that it's huge price tag might actually harm students in Florida.

Lee County School District's Superintendent Dr. James Browder is faced with a big challenge. He needs to make sure all of the district's classrooms meet the strict requirements of the class size amendment.

Browder said there is no question about it, the amendment could bankrupt the state of Florida.

"The citizens of the state of Florida have put 3 billion dollars into class size and an unintended outcome is that we've hired a lot of people and those folks are helping us, but at the same time it's very very costly," said Browder.

School districts state-wide have until 2010 to meet the amendment's requirements.

Pre-Kindergarten through third grade classrooms cannot have more than 18 students, grades four through eight can have no more than 22 students, grades nine through 12 are limited to 25 students.

The state legislature is supposed to cover all the costs associated with the amendment but lawmakers said that will not happen this year.

"There's a 76.9 million dollar hit to the class size reduction fund, so that's going to make it harder for the Lee County school district to lower class sizes," said Senator Dave Aronberg, (D) Fl District 27.

The Lee County School District has spent more than $450 million to hire new teachers and build new classrooms to meet the class size amendment requirements.

"I think that more money should be spent teaching kids, investing in technology, paying teachers more but right now pretty much all the new dollars are spent on lowering class sizes to a specific level," said Aronberg.

Some research has shown that smaller class sizes can be very beneficial.

A statewide study begun in Tennessee in the late 1970s and found that the learning gains students make in classes of 13 to 17 students persist long after the students move back into average-size classes.

Researchers at four Tennessee universities found poor and African-American students appeared to reap the greatest learning gains in smaller classes.

An evaluation by researchers at the Education Policy Studies Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found that a 5-year-old program of class-size reduction in Wisconsin has resulted in higher achievement for children living in poverty.

But opposing research has concluded that the rigorous requirements of Florida's amendment could actually hurt students.

The Council For Education Policy and Research came to a very harsh realization after studying the amendment: it will not improve the quality of education in Florida.

The study pointed to problems with California's class size amendment and showed that when the state's demand for teachers increased, the quality of the teaching workforce declined.

"I don't think its fair to ask the public to fund something that's not gonna make a huge difference academically for children," said Dr. Browder.

Both Dr. Browder and Senator Aronberg think the amendment needs to have more flexibility, focusing on school-wide class size averages and not strict numbers of students in each classroom.

"I don't know that it has to go room by room. I think the school average gives the principal in the building some flexibility and I think that's real important as we move forward," said Browder.

The man who originally proposed the class size amendment has gone from state Senator to United States Congressman.

Representative Kendrick Meek, (D) Florida-17th District, said the state's financial challenges don't change what voters approved when they voted on the amendment.

"The class size amendment has done wonders for school overcrowding and has allowed teachers to teach and children to learn," said Meek as he boarded a plane to head back to Washington, DC Monday afternoon.

Meek said that it is up to lawmakers, not schools, to make sure there is enough money for smaller class sizes and schools districts can sue if lawmakers don't do that.

"In the state constitution there's language there to make sure parents teachers and students can file for injunctive relief if they find for a period of years the state has been reluctant in provider small class size state legislature has flexibility to do they need to do to meet class size amendment," said Meek.

Repealing the class size amendment altogether would take another state-wide vote. Many state lawmakers are looking at statutes that modify the amendment to allow districts in Florida have a school-wide average class size.