State Superintendent of Schools Tom Luna said the reason his school reform proposal jumped from two bills to five and then back to three was just because of different configurations of the same items; for example, the two bills not introduced today did things like the reform plan and the pay-for-performance plan in one bill, rather than in separate ones. "We wanted to make sure that every option was available," Luna said after today's Senate Education Committee hearing.

He said there's been no change in the bills to give more flexibility to school districts on class sizes. "That flexibility is available, and i don't think the people realize that," Luna said. "I wanted to make sure that that flexibility is there. Ultimately, class sizes will be determined at the local level."

That's why, though the state's teacher-student ratio may be around 18, many districts now have class sizes of 30 or more kids. Luna's new reform bills still would would raise the divisors used in the state's funding formula by the same amount as proposed in his original bills; that means districts would be funded for fewer teachers and larger classes. If they didn't want that, they'd have to shift things around to cut other things, like teacher pay, rather than increase class sizes.