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No one can accuse Dan Patrick of linguistic inefficiency. In Senate Bill 300, Patrick manages to reverse five school mandates by striking eight words and adding just 27 to the Texas Education Code.

Patrick’s bill would overturn the rule, in effect since the 1980s, requiring elementary classrooms to maintain a 22-to-1 student-teacher ratio. Rather than capping each class at 22 students, Patrick’s bill would allow districts to have a campuswide average of 22 students per teacher. The bill would also increase the number of schools exempt from the 22-to-1 rule. Currently, districts that have received an “exemplary” rating from the Texas Education Agency are exempt from many school mandates, including the elementary class size limit. SB 300 would also exempt districts rated as “recognized.”

“Any measure that seeks to water down the 22-to-1 student ratio would be a grave disservice to our students,” says Larry Comer, spokesman for the Association of Texas Professional Educators. “Trying to manage 22 6-, 7- and 8-year-olds is enough in and of itself. It’s already difficult for teachers to have one-on-one time with students who need help.”

Court Koenning, Patrick’s spokesman, says the mandates are cramping school districts’ styles. “School districts should have the flexibility to do what they think is in the best interest of their districts and the taxpayers,” he says.

The bill would also reverse two energy-efficiency mandates passed in 2007. One requires schools to reduce energy consumption by 5 percent each year for six years, beginning in 2007; the other requires schools to use the most energy-efficient lightbulbs they can find.

The issue, says Koenning, is cost. Several school districts in Patrick’s district had to spend a lot of money to comply with the measures, he says, particularly Klein ISD. Klein energy manager Allan Scott says the district was indeed “one of the worst” energy-wise before it began to comply with the mandates. So far, Klein has spent more than $1 million meeting the energy-consumption goal, not counting the several million dollars needed to complete the lighting retrofit.

That investment is not without a payoff: In the 2007-08 school year, the Klein district used 8 percent less electricity than the year before, and saved about $1 million on electric bills. In the Austin ISD, which completed a lighting retrofit earlier this decade, facilities director Paul Turner says the schools are paying roughly $3 million less on utilities than five years ago—despite rising electricity costs. The lighting, he says, is “low-hanging fruit”—and a critical change, since lighting accounts for 30 to 40 percent of a district’s electric bill.

Patrick’s legislation takes aim at one other mandate: the requirement that districts conduct school-bus evacuation training for students and teachers. Koenning says Patrick wants this requirement stricken because some districts with few or no buses have had to rent buses and hire trainers to comply with the law. The senator, he says, is just looking out for the districts’ bottom lines.

“There’s no question that these [mandates] can be cumbersome and expensive,” says Joe Bean, spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association. “The way to deal with this is not to remove these sensible requirements, but to revise the school funding so we can pay for them.”

And that, folks, is an issue for another day.