About This Issue

Why School Buildings Matter

School buildings play a critical role in the lives of children, teachers, and communities:

• The physical learning environment has an impact on student achievement and teaching quality.

• School buildings and sites directly affect student and teacher health.

• Schools are major consumers of materials, energy, land and water, making building improvements a powerful way to improve environmental stewardship, save energy and reduce pollution in our communities.

• The physical characteristics of public schools impact their surrounding neighborhood, and schools often serve as an important public commons where shared public use can take place.

• Finally, school buildings represent a significant investment of community resources – we should be careful stewards of these resources by ensuring that schools are designed, built, renovated and maintained in the most cost-effective manner.

Scale of Public School Infrastructure

Almost 20 percent of our nation’s population – 56 million students and teachers – spend their days in the country’s 97,000 public school buildings. These buildings comprise an estimated 6.6 billion square feet of space. In addition to building space, schools utilize extensive land and site amenities, conservatively estimated at over 1 million acres.

Condition of Public School Facilities

Despite the importance of school buildings to the quality of teaching, learning, health, environment and community vibrancy, many of our nation’s public school buildings are in poor condition.

Evidence abounds that even after over $500 billion of capital outlays for K-12 school building improvements between 1995 and 2004, public school facilities, particularly in low-wealth communities, have substantial deficiencies.

In 31 states, plaintiffs have challenged the adequacy or equity of public education funding in low-income communities and made facility conditions an element of their lawsuits.

The American Society of Civil Engineers began including public schools in its Infrastructure Report Card in 1998. That year it gave public schools an “F” grade; over a decade later, in 2009, the Infrastructure Report Card gave the nation’s public schools a “D” grade.

Funding and Support Needed for High Quality School Facilities

Data indicates that our schools would need well over $200 billion nationally to bring school buildings up to basic standards of repair.

While states and localities have been making significant investments in school facilities – over a half-trillion dollars between 1995 and 2004 alone – the still-high needs indicate that federal assistance is needed in order for schools to keep up with building maintenance and repairs. This is especially true in low-income communities.

In addition to providing funding support, targeted to low-wealth districts, the federal government can provide the states with policy support:

• To facilitate the collection of better information on school building conditions and needs, the federal government can develop and disseminate definitions and standards, and can encourage (or require) the creation of a national database on school facilities. These actions would mirror the existing role of the National Center for Education Statistics in collecting student and teacher data from local and state education agencies.

• The federal government can take the lead in encouraging partnership among federal agencies, states, and localities for better planning and coordination of efforts to improve school buildings and surrounding neighborhoods.

Let’s make sure federal legislators have a clear view of our nation’s public schools: invite your legislators to view the exhibit today!

New Orleans, www.criticalexposure.org

Rayvon (12th Grade), Washington, DC, www.criticalexposure.org

photo courtesy of National Trust for Historic Preservation

Aquera (6th Grade), Washington, DC, www.criticalexposure.org

Fatoumata and Elizabeth (7th Grade), Washington, DC, www.criticalexposure.org

Dakota Fine, Washington, DC, www.criticalexposure.org

Theodora (8th Grade), Washington, DC, www.criticalexposure.org