OLYMPIA -- House and Senate Republicans were confident Tuesday that voters would agree to trim down requirements to reduce class sizes in public schools, as approved yesterday in a bill connected to the Senate budget.

Survey results released Tuesday by The Elway Poll said the concept of across-the-board reductions remain popular. The company asked some 500 voters around the state if they would support what seems to be the Legislature's preferred alternative -- limiting reductions to kindergarten through Grade 3, rather than making them in all grades -- and more than half said the Legislature should find a way to reduce all class sizes.

If the Legislature asks the voters to choose between a tax increase to pay for system-wide class-size reductions or limiting the reductions to K-3, respondents were split: 48 percent said they'd likely or certainly vote no on a tax increase while 43 percent said they'd likely or certainly vote yes.

A major theme of both parties in both chambers this year has been that the state cannot fully implement Initiative 1351, which voters approved last November, without a tax increase. There's general agreement on trying to limit the reductions to K-3, which supporters say research shows is the most effective for helping struggling students. There's no specific agreement, however, on how to do that.

Changing an initiative in the first two years after voters approve it requires a two-thirds majority in both houses under most circumstances. But asking voters to approve such a change through a referendum only requires a simple majority, and the predominantly Republican Senate majority passed and sent to the House a bill that would do that on Monday. 

Minority Democrats in the Senate all voted no, but on Republicans essentially challenged House Democrats to come up with a better plan.

"The House hasn't passed anything related to 1351," Senate Majority Leader Mark Schoesler said Tuesday at the weekly GOP press conference. "Show us your plan in the House. Is it a two-thirds vote?"

 Schoesler discounted poll results so far before a possible election, noting that I-1351 had a large margin in the polls months before the election but passed with only about 51 percent of the vote. The results might have been different if voters had more information about the total cost or the opposition from state leaders, he added. 

Pollster H. Stuart Elway noted that the lead for I-1351 evaporated last year as opponents hammered on the cost. "This smaller lead might be vulnerable once real dollars are attached," he said.

Smaller class sizes are popular but the public is divided on costs, he added. (Editor's note: An earlier version of this post misidentified H. Stuart Elway.)

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