THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 7, 1996 TAG: 9607040023
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 57 lines
It's no surprise to anyone who's spent much time lately in Virginia's public schools that the state of repair is at least as problematic as the state of learning.
Peeling paint here. Leaky roofs there. Crowded classrooms over yonder. The latest confirmation of this nonsecret comes from the U.S. General Accounting Office which recently reported that 27 percent of Virginia's elementary and secondary schools need major renovation. A whopping 60 percent require repair of one major architectural feature such as a wall, roof or floor.
It's slim consolation that schools in most other states have similar needs, or that inadequate classrooms are spread fairly equitably among urban, rural and suburban districts.
The deteriorating educational infrastructure is in part a consequence of age. Almost half of Virginia's schools were built in the baby-boom years of the 1950s and 1960s. Now, between a quarter- and a half-century later, many are approaching the end of their shelf life.
But the fact that more repairs haven't been done is also a matter of choice.
School construction and renovation in Virginia are financed at the local level, often through bonds or loans paid off with real-estate taxes. These days, sentiment for such taxes is about as high as the James River in late August.
In many localities, a member of the city council or board of supervisors who votes for a tax hike might as well hand over their keys to city hall or court house. Lately, there have been few surer ways for a politician to reach his own political shelf life.
At the state level, a primary source of school-construction funds was diverted elsewhere during the early 1990s, again as a way of avoiding tax increases.
The Literary Fund, established by the 1810 Virginia Constitution, is a repository for various state fines and unclaimed monies. For much of the fund's life, it was a source of low-interest loans for school construction.
But between 1991 and 1995, most of the $100 million or so in annual Literary Fund revenues went to pay for teacher retirement, rather than provide new loans. That step helped free up general-fund revenues and was one way of avoiding a tax increase during a recession.
It's fine to be against tax increases and to find clever ways of avoiding them. But no one should kid himself that such policy comes without a cost. One price is school buildings that evoke less than an outpouring of civic pride.
The State Department of Education is completing its own survey of public-school facilities. The results, expected later this month, are likely to be as uncomplimentary as the GAO's.
You may not be able to judge a book by its cover. But you can tell something about a community's commitment to education and children by the condition of the facilities in which it expects them to learn.
Virginia has deferred maintenance of its school infrastructure for too long. Now the practice has caught up with the state. We must all expect to pay a price for postponing so many repairs, but they have to be made. The alternative is more decay and an even bigger bill later. by CNB