An initiative to hire hundreds of teachers to reduce class size in Maryland's early grade reading courses -- a centerpiece campaign promise of Gov. Parris N. Glendening -- is headed for approval in the General Assembly.

The Senate passed a scaled-back version of the Glendening bill last night, and minor differences with the House's approved bill are expected to be worked out before the legislative session ends April 12.

The program, which could cost the state close to $40 million a year, would provide grants to counties to hire as many as 860 teachers for reading in first and second grade -- with the goal of having no more than 20 pupils per class.

Legislators in both houses have deleted a provision to hire as many as 250 teachers for seventh-grade mathematics classes, which was part of Glendening's campaign promise, but the governor was pleased last night.

"Reducing the number of students in reading classes in the early years of elementary school, particularly the first and second grades, instills valuable lifelong learning skills that will make a critical difference in later years," Glendening said in a statement.

Glendening has not proposed funding for the initiative in next year's budget, and may only do so for one county, Montgomery.

For the rest of the jurisdictions, he has pledged to phase in funding for the program over the last three years of his term.

The program was one of the governor's key promises in a re-election campaign focused on education. He made the promise two months after his Republican challenger, Ellen R. Sauerbrey, made a similar call for increased state spending for reading teachers in the early grades.

Clinton's pledge

President Clinton has pledged to hire 100,000 teachers nationwide to reduce primary school class sizes.

Glendening argued his proposal was based on studies showing that pupils who cannot adequately read by the third grade have difficulty later in many subjects.

Legislators have apparently embraced the argument.

"In the early grades, you've got to get the [class size] numbers down as low as you can," said Sen. Barbara A. Hoffman, chairwoman of the Budget and Taxation Committee. "Twenty's a start."

Hoffman, a Baltimore Democrat, said legislators cut the provision for new mathematics teachers because not much research on how class size affects math learning is available.

Move to math

"If we get reading done right across the state, we can move on to math," she said.

The legislation includes a provision allowing the new teacher grants to be reduced if a school system has a high number of uncertified teachers -- a potential problem for schools in Baltimore City and Prince George's County. But the House and Senate bills have provisions giving the state flexibility not to reduce the grants.

Sun staff writer Timothy B. Wheeler contributed to this article.

Pub Date: 3/30/99