by AFT President Sandra Feldman
September 1999

Kids deserve schools
that tell them,
"What you're doing
here is important."

Have you heard about the teacher who wondered what caused the creaking sound in the classroom ceiling? Eventually she found out. The ceiling, waterlogged from a leaking roof, fell down on her desk.

The teacher's experience--and that of her students, who arrived a few minutes later--is a good emblem of the infrastructure crisis that states and school districts are facing. School buildings are aging and beginning to fall apart, and many are seriously overcrowded.

We can't dismiss the problem by saying it's just a question of the "physical plant." Kids deserve schools that tell them, "You and what you are doing here are important." And we know from research that student achievement suffers in crowded and deteriorating schools. If we're serious about kids' meeting new and higher academic standards, we have to make sure they have decent places to learn. At the same time, the infrastructure crisis places an enormous burden on states and school districts--and many will need help.

Old and Decrepit

The average age of a school building in this country is 42, and many are much older. They take a real beating every year, so it should be no surprise that nearly one third of our schools need basic and costly repairs just to keep them safe and functioning. Some--approximately 28,000--need new heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems so kids don't freeze in the winter and swelter in the summer, and so they have decent air to breathe. Some--approximately 23,000--have inadequate plumbing. And 21,000 need major roof repairs.

Making these improvements will not be cheap. The General Accounting Office figures it will cost $112 billion to bring existing schools up to a decent standard. This is in addition to the money that states and school districts have already spent. And it will not end the infrastructure crisis.

One Million More

Over the next ten years, one million more students will crowd into classrooms that have already reached their capacity--and then some. We have to build enough new classrooms to accommodate these kids and ensure smaller class size. And if we hope to educate them in computer and Internet technology, we have to wire the new classrooms and the many existing classrooms that still have chalk and chalkboards as their only technology. All this comes to an additional $73 billion.

Since states and local school districts are largely responsible for education, the lion's share of this money has to come from them. Most have begun work, and many are doing an extraordinarily good job. Chicago, for example, is in the midst of an ambitious school improvement program, and fixing the physical environment is a big part of it. Not only did they end social promotion; they repaired and built classrooms. At this point, 13 new schools, 23 additions, 27 annexes and over two thousand other projects are completed or underway, and the city has spent $1.75 billion dollars. But Chicago will need $2.15 billion more to finish the job. And even though the U.S. is in a period of prosperity, many states and districts will be hard-pressed to find the money they need.

A Modest Proposal

The federal government can't fund the work, but it can and should help. The President proposes that tax credits be used to help pay the interest on bonds that districts float to finance school construction. This would help relieve the financial burden on states and school districts without involving the feds in decisions that should be made at the local level. The proposal will not erase the $200 billion national shortfall, but if the nation invests $3 billion in tax credits over a period of five years, it will generate $25 billion in interest-free, local school bonds. That would be enough to build 6,000 local schools--interest free.

Bills adopting this approach have been introduced by Reps. Charles Rangel (D. N.Y.) and Nancy Johnson (R. Conn.) and Senator Charles Robb (D.Va.), and there is a good chance that school infrastructure legislation will be considered this fall.

The idea of using federal tax credits to finance school building projects has support from a near majority in the House. But for Congress to take action, senators and representatives will have to hear from their constituents.

No child in America should be in an overcrowded school or in a classroom without proper lighting, ventilation, and equipment. Not today, and certainly not in the new millennium.