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RALEIGH — Classrooms would get more crowded under the Senate’s draft plan to balance the state budget.

 North Carolina would save $322.7 million next year by increasing the average classroom size by two students throughout the public school system. In kindergarten through third grade classes, that would mean an average of 20 students per class. In grades 4 and above, it would mean an average of 22 students per class.

 “We’ve done our best to protect the classroom,” said Sen. Linda Garrou, a Winston-Salem Democrat and the chamber’s lead budget writer. “A lot of studies say the most important thing is we have a good teacher in the classroom.”

 To that end, Garrou said, the Senate provided for teachers to get their annual step pay increases.

 But some school administrators say increasing class size is the wrong approach.

 “Class size makes a difference, even by a student or two,” said Patrice Brown, principal at Archer Elementary in Greensboro.

 The problem isn’t adding just one or two students more, Brown said. It’s which students get added. If a student is low performing for whatever reason, it’s difficult to help that student in a large class.

 Beth Folger, Guilford County Schools’ chief academic officer, said research on the issue is mixed but there’s no denying the importance of individual attention.

 “I think in education we are so short on human resources it makes things even more difficult,” she said. But while she opposes the idea, she said she also understands that budget constraints may require this type of tough decision.

 The N.C. Association of Educators estimates the classroom size changes would amount to the elimination of 6,200 jobs statewide. Garrou and other state budget writers dispute that figure, saying the school system would lose enough teachers through retirements and transfers that there would be no need for layoffs.

 The Senate budget is the second of four major steps in assembling the budget. Already, Gov. Bev Perdue has made her recommendations. Next, the House will write its own version of the budget. After that, all three versions must be reconciled into a final tax-and-spending plan that will govern the state starting July 1.

 Details on the Senate’s tax provisions were scarce Monday night.

 The Senate would spend $1.4 billion less than the previous years.

 In addition to specific cuts, senators rely on “management flexibility” cuts, giving each agency a mandate to find a certain amount of savings on its own. Those cuts could include layoffs, furloughs, delays in equipment purchase or a combination of approaches.

 Although Senate budget writers said they cut overall education spending the least of all program areas, they still found places to save money:

•  Beginning the merger of More-at-Four and Smart Start, the state’s two early childhood development programs.
•  Requiring the Department of Public Instruction to eliminate 300 jobs in the next two years.
•  Delaying the purchase of new math textbooks in grades 6-12 by one year.
•  Eliminating some testing programs not required by law or as a condition of federal grants.

 The Senate budget proposal eliminates 900 vacant positions across state government and could lead to more than 700 state workers losing their jobs.

 In other items of interest to Greensboro and the Triad, the Senate budget:

•  Would close the Guilford Correctional Center. Although the Senate closes fewer prison units than Perdue recommended, prisoners from the unit in McLeansville would be sent to other prisons under the Senate budget plan.
•  Spares the High Point Market the most severe cuts. Although recommended for elimination by the Commerce Department, the Senate budget only trims by 2 percent the approximately $850,000 the furniture market gets for promoting itself annually.
•  Gives $2 million to N.C. A&T for support of post-doctoral and faculty positions, a portion of which help to match a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center grant.
•  Gives $1 million to continue the phase-in of the joint UNCG-A&T Nanoscience School.

 Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com