What a mess!
Too many of our schools are falling apart or overcrowded--so when is Congress going to do something about it?

School No. 1 in Perth Amboy, N.J., opened in 1871 when Ulysses S. Grant was president. Thomas Edison's light bulb was still eight years in the future. Much later, the school was renamed for its first custodian, Thomas Mundy Peterson, who was the first African American to vote after the adoption of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution.

Fast-forward to 1999. The Thomas Mundy Peterson school is now 128 years old. Bill Clinton is president, and he is pushing for federal aid to help communities like Perth Amboy modernize or replace buildings that can no longer meet the educational needs of children.

Some of those unmet needs are very basic. At the Thomas Mundy Peterson School, there is no central hallway, so students have to walk through other classrooms to reach their own. The building has three floors but the only bathrooms for these K-4 students are on the bottom floor.

Hiking to the bathroom is an even bigger problem at Chapman Junior High School in Farmington, Ill., where the only working facilities are in an elementary school addition to the junior high building. Students lose valuable instruction time en route, and the potential for discipline problems is obvious.

Chapman, built in 1915, has an ancient boiler and erratic temperature control. "My room is right over the boiler room, so for the second floor to have any heat at all, my room is 80 degrees in the winter," says teacher Jill Taff. Science teacher Jeff Weyers no longer keeps animals or plants in his room--not since his piranha died of the cold despite the two heaters in its tank.

Perth Amboy and Farmington are not wealthy communities. Neither are most of the cities with the greatest need for school construction funds.

The average school in the United States is 42 years old. Many schools in low-income areas are much older.

According to the General Accounting Office, one-third of all elementary and secondary schools in the United States, serving 14 million students, need extensive repair or renovation. The GAO estimates the cost of bringing schools up to date at $112 billion. With school populations hitting new records every year, the Department of Education says the U.S. will need 2,400 new schools by 2003.

President Clinton's proposal is to spend just $3.1 billion over five years to help school districts raise $25 billion with construction bonds. The federal money would pay the bond interest. Even this modest proposal has gotten the cold shoulder in Congress where many members are eager to give away $800 billion in tax breaks that would mostly benefit the very rich.

But President Clinton and AFT leaders believe this issue is winnable. Last month, the AFT joined other unions for Labor Day events in a dozen communities across the country to build public pressure.

President Clinton and AFT president Sandra Fieldname spoke at Coleman Place Elementary School in Norfolk, Va., where the AFT local, the AFL-CIO Central Labor Council and the Building Trades Council organized a volunteer workday at the school. Skilled tradespeople, teachers, community volunteers and even children rolled up their sleeves and renovated two classrooms.

The federal government needs to pitch in, too. In Norfolk, more than 200 students will be studying in "mobile" classrooms outside the school this year because there is no room for them inside. Students must walk outdoors--regardless of the weather--to reach the cafeteria, the music room or the bathroom. "It interrupts instruction. It reduces the time we have to do the job of teaching these children," says Norfolk Federation of Teachers president Marian Flickinger, who attended Coleman Elementary as a child. The main building opened in 1925 and badly needs repairs. Just replacing the old windows would cost $300,000, and the school board doesn't have it.

Flickinger is using the presidential publicity to mobilize a grassroots lobbying drive for passage of the federal construction aid. Her goal is 5,000 post cards sent to Congress. "Our needs are growing, and our funding sources are not," she says. "We need federal help."

American Federation of Teachers, AFL•CIO - 555 New Jersey Avenue, NW - Washington, DC 20001