Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 14, 1993 TAG: 9312140056
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The red-brick school is so rickety that Principal William Moore has requested 117 different repairs in recent years, only six of which have been made. Padlocks and heavy chains kept the auditorium's fire doors from falling off the hinges. They were repaired after a reporter pointed out the hazard. The smell of urine permeates the boys' bathroom, where half of the knobs on the sinks are broken or missing.
All across the country, public schools are falling apart. The problem is most evident in big cities like Washington, but it is a growing problem in suburbs and even small Midwestern towns like Dodge City, Kan.
No agency is responsible for cataloging the condition or safety of public schools. But a 1991 study by the American Association of School Administrators found that one in eight U.S. schools, or 13,000 buildings for 5 million students, are unsafe or otherwise substandard. The year before, the Washington-based Education Writers Association concluded that one-fourth of all school buildings "are shoddy places for learning."
So shoddy that there have been roof cave-ins in Wisconsin, dangerously shifting foundations in Massachusetts and no running water in some southern Ohio schools. This past September, 1 million New York public-school students were kept out of classrooms by concern about possible asbestos contamination.
"Federal judges have ordered jails closed and new ones built because the conditions violated the rights of the prisoner. Some of our schools wouldn't pass such scrutiny," said Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mich.
About 31 percent of the nation's 84,000 schools were built before World War II. Another 43 percent were built in the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s, according to AASA.
Thousands of the schools built during the Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations need major roof repairs. The New York Board of Education recently announced that nearly half their buildings - more than 400 schools - need new roofs.
Just how important surroundings are to learning is much debated among academics. However, American schools, under public pressure over the last decade to pump more money into teacher salaries, supplies and instruction reforms, have been investing smaller percentages in maintenance. As a result, the physical conditions of thousands of schools are hurting teacher recruitment, prompting lawsuits and interfering with students' concentration.
And when areas need new schools or new roofs, school-bond measures - the main mechanism for funding construction improvements - often fail. One reason is that fewer voters have school-age children. Even those with children are more distrustful of how schools spend money, and everyone, it seems, is fed up with taxes.
The situation is so bad, many educators say, that a new system of paying for school construction and repairs is needed.
"You can't have a quality education in a falling-down school building," said Education Secretary Richard Riley. Senators and House members have talked to him about the rotting schools in their states, Riley said, and "the discussion continues" on how the federal government might be able to help.
States also are likely to have to contribute more. More than 25 states are involved in lawsuits over why some children in rich districts have computers, while others in poor districts have tattered books from the New Deal.
by CNB