Schools Deteriorate. Children and Teachers Suffer. ©

Recently, communities are more actively speaking of the future.  They are expressing their concerns for what we as a society have accepted.  Mostly the focus is on the war in Iraq.  Corruption in Congress can consume us for weeks at a time.  When chatting in cyberspace, Americans touch on issues such as the economy, healthcare, and Social Security.  These all qualify as vital when discussing our distresses.  

However rarely, do we discuss the situation in the schools.  We dance around and dialogue some; we speak of students and state there is a need to promote success.  At times, educators, and even the greater community consider the topics of “standards,” “teaching to the test,” and “accountability.”  Still, these issues stay on the periphery; those in power tie our purse strings.  Thus, we capitulate; we yield to their unwitting wisdom.  As sad as this may be, we do little or less to better the educational opportunities for our offspring.  It may be sadder still that we house our healthy students in decomposing buildings.  
The physical condition of their surroundings affects the fitness and wellbeing of our progeny.  Yet, we ignore this circumstance.  We allow what contributes to ill health in our young.  We, the public, accepts that those that teach our children will also endure environmentally caused illness.

There are environmental problems in Chicago and Washington schools that the study found to be exacerbated by poor building design and maintenance, creating situations for many teachers and students that jeopardized not only academic outcomes but also health.  Of the conditions most surely linked to health and academic achievement — indoor air quality, thermal comfort, lighting and noise, was of greatest concern.

They say you cannot fight City Hall or Congress.  I ask; might politics be more about all people, even or especially the youngest among us?

Organizations, such as The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), are reaching out, attempting to further the dialogue amongst educators.  Their hope is that if teachers speak, perchance the populous will listen.  They acknowledge that, thus far the words of those that work in the schools fall on deaf ears.  Nevertheless, the American Federation of Teachers tries.  They invite all of us to share in their concerns.

On December 4, 2006, The American Federation of Teachers delved deeper.  They published a report addressing the nitty-gritty in instruction, the buildings themselves.  In Build It Up we can read about  the use of asbestos in school construction and illness due to environmental issues.  In this article, the reader is subjected to the suffering due to poor conditions in our school.  

Structures are built on landfills.  Toxins are often found in the air and in the walls.  What seeps through the ceilings is distressing.  Dis-ease in the classroom is prevalent amongst these educators and their pupils.  Possibly, these concerns effect instructors and scholars in your own districts.

“[We have] leaks and even the occasional icicle from my computer lab ceiling, asbestos coming up off the floor, the exterior walls are crumbling. We feel forgotten ….” — a Minnesota technology coordinator

“Our school has been built on a former landfill…. On our worst days, we’re forced to have early dismissal because so many get sick from the smell.” — a Boston third-grade teacher

These quotes from AFT members come from our new report Building Minds and Minding Buildings.   We asked these members and their brothers and sisters across the country to describe the condition of the schools they work in.

What we found was sobering, but not surprising.  Although many schools are properly maintained and in good condition, far too many are not, The Society of Civil Engineers, for example, gave America’s schools a “D” grade for quality of infrastructure.

This issue has direct educational and health consequences for kids.  For example, poor acoustics and indoor air quality hurt performance in the classroom.  Mold and improper ventilation are linked to respiratory troubles such as asthma.  Schools with poor facilities have higher teacher turnover, which also directly affects student learning.

Max B. Sawicky and Doug Harris, of the Economic Policy Institute thinks the situations in the schools are important.  These economic experts wrote of this in Putting school renovation on a fast track.  The authors cite a portion of an article from Education Week to demonstrate how dire conditions might be.

A school in Portland, Maine, was closed forever last month.  The Romeo, Michigan, district started the school year four days late.  And students from a high school in St. Charles, Illinois, now are forced to take their classes at a middle school.  The culprit in each case was mold, literally a growing problem in the nation’s schools….”?~ Education Week

The United States Government Accountability Office GAO also expresses concerns.  This federal organization sees school facilities crumbling and wonders of our youth.  Will we?  Can we contemplate what we know and yet rather not recognize?

I wish to present what is a problem in our neighborhoods.  Schools are crumbling; our children are sitting in classrooms where the conditions are poor.  In California, on May 17, 2000,  a coalition of private and public-interest groups filed a lawsuit in hopes of taking action against the state.  The complaint alleges that students in 18 schools throughout the region receive a substandard education.  What we witness as we watch the facades of our school fall to pieces is reflected within.   What occurs within the walls is due to an overall lack of attention.  

Mark Rosenbaum, Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] states, “These schools are the shame of California.”  Rosenbaum expounded, “If these schools were housing, they would be treated as slums.”  Exasperated, representing Attorney Rosenbaum explained, “These are the schools a government would create if it did not care about all its children.” I agree.  Our actions as a society speak volumes.  

We say that we care; yet, there is ample evidence to demonstrate that we do not.  I surmise, we must accept that our actions do not match our words.  We need to ponder why this is.  Would we wish to study in classrooms where our health is sacrificed?  Do we want this for our children or for the offspring of our neighbors?  Are we  willing to sacrifice the elders that serve our students?  I think not.  Yet, that is what we do.  Now that we, the “adults” are out of school, education, and the circumstances of educators seems to be a lower priority.  Money, making it, and not spending it takes precedence.  “Raise No taxes” is the rallying cry!  Americans have spoken.

We, our countrymen, do not wish to commit to doling out cash for petty concerns.  As long as the young have food and shelter that is sufficient.  The quality of our facilities [and the excellence of instruction] need not matter.  For “when I was a child . . .”  or so the saying goes.

From all accounts, the public does not wish to comment, to commit, nor do they [we] expect our elected officials to take further action.

“The lawsuit is lengthy and detailed,” Leigh Manasevit, a spokesperson for the California Department of Education (CDE) told Education World today. “[CDE] will have no comment about the lawsuit until the department’s lawyers, and perhaps the attorney general, have had a chance to review it.”

Among the complaints detailed in the lawsuit:

Some classes lack textbooks; other classes don’t have enough textbooks for every student.

Some classes share textbooks, which prevents students from taking them home to do homework.

Some schools are severely overcrowded.

Schedules present obstacles to learning, including year-round schedules that result in a reduced number of instruction days.

Some schools lack adequate heating, ventilation, or air conditioning.

In some schools, classrooms are created in spaces previously used as gymnasiums, libraries, and auditoriums.

Some teachers have not yet obtained teaching credentials.

Roaches and vermin inhabit some classrooms.

Some schools offer too few courses.

Some schools have filthy bathrooms and toilets with no seat covers.

Some classrooms don’t have enough seats for students.

In some schools, libraries are closed.

The supply of paper and pencils is insufficient in some schools.
Those problems occur disproportionately in schools serving minority students in urban areas. Even when violations of “minimal standards” are reported, the state has taken few steps to remedy the situation, the suit contends.

Remedy and review.  There has much of this for decades though the situation in our schools continues to worsen.  

Actually, in many locales the state of affairs is worse than what is reported here.  Words cannot express what it might feel like to study in surroundings where paint is peeling, public toilets are plugged, icicles drip from the ceilings, and wind whooshes through the windows and doors.   The specifics set aside above speak to the situation in California where the climate is moderate.  Perhaps, we could try to imagine what learning is like for the young in the inner city schools of New York City, Chicago, and the frigid metropolis of Detroit, Minneapolis, or Milwaukee.

You might recall the famous or infamous, depending on your point of view, Jonathan Kozol and his publication, “Savage Inequalities.”

The problems of the streets in urban areas, as teachers often note, frequently spill over into public schools. In the public schools of East St. Louis, this is literally the case.

“Martin Luther King Junior High School,” notes the Post-Dispatch in a story published in the early spring of 1989, “was evacuated Friday afternoon after sewage flowed into the kitchen…. The kitchen was closed and students were sent home.” On Monday, the paper continues, “East St. Louis Senior High School was awash in sewage for the second time this year.” The school had to be shut because of “fumes and backed-up toilets.” Sewage flowed into the basement, through the floor, then up into the kitchen and the students’ bathrooms. The backup, we read, “occurred in the food preparation areas.”

School is resumed the following morning at the high school, but a few days later, the overflow recurs. This time the entire system is affected, since the meals distributed to every student in the city are prepared in the two schools that have been flooded. School is called off for all 16,500 students in the district. The sewage backup, caused by the failure of two pumping stations, forces officials at the high school to shut down the furnaces.

At Martin Luther King, the parking lot and gym are also flooded. “It’s a disaster,” says a legislator. “The streets are underwater; gaseous fumes are being emitted from the pipes under the schools,” she says, “making people ill.”

In the same week, the schools announce the layoff of 280 teachers, 166 cooks and cafeteria workers, 25 teacher aides, 16 custodians and 18 painters, electricians, engineers and plumbers. The president of the teachers’ union says the cuts, which will bring the size of kindergarten and primary classes up to 30 students, and the size of fourth to twelfth grade classes up to 35, will have “an unimaginable impact” on the students. “If you have a high school teacher with five classes each day and between 150 and 175 students . . ., it’s going to have a devastating effect.” The school system, it is also noted, has been using more than 70 “permanent substitute teachers,” who are paid only $10,000 yearly, as a way of saving money.

Granted, this was the worse of the worse, and in East St. Louis things are improving since Kozal’s disclosure.  However, conditions are still terrible.  For many, situations similar to these are life in America.  As long as we do not discuss what is, as long as we allow the tax dollars that support our schools to wither away for we want no tax increases, society as a whole will suffer.  Might we re-assess our priorities?  Is our progeny important, are our educators able to truly teach.  If not what will become of future generations, what is already happening to us.

As you reflect on the national, state and local budgets look now at the pavement, or the roads you ride on.  Ponder the conditions you see.  What we neglect will decay, be these minds, bodies, or buildings.

Thus, I beg; I plead. I believe educators, parents, and those in cyberspace communities need to advance awareness.  We must speak of the dirty little secret, students and teachers are suffering.  Distressed and debilitating circumstances are ample.  These are spreading as our infrastructure disintegrates.  I wonder; will we sit idly by and watch, waiting for what, Godot.

Often diaries that discuss schools receive few comments.  Are we not concerned for our children, their teachers, or for ourselves?   I wonder, does anyone care?  What will we welcome in our net neighborhoods, and what might we deem “unfortunate”; yet beyond our control.  Our schools are in crisis, [our cities fare no better.]  Will we cogitate; can we confer, convene, and come to an agreement or will we continue to stand by?  Perhaps, we as the California Department of Education official announced, need more time to review.

Please Review the resources . . .