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Underfunding of public school buildings hits $38 billion annually, as banks salivate. The American Society of Civil Engineers, which handed out a C- grade to the nation’s infrastructure in its latest quadrennial assessment, gave school infrastructure a D grade.
“The best estimates indicate a minimum of $38 billion annual funding gap for public school facilities across the country.”
Meanwhile, a growing industry of global banks, private equity funds, and construction firms are eyeing struggling school districts, pitching “public-private partnerships” to profit from new school construction. The American Society of Civil Engineers
And now the rest of the nows…
The funding public schools really need. Education professor Bruce Baker on the pandemic’s effects on school funding: “The current Biden framework includes some of these elements but lacks sufficient detail. The plan needs to better sort out the short term (COVID preparedness), medium term (filling state budget holes) and longer term (maintaining adequate ongoing funding and investing in infrastructure) issues.” National Education Policy Center
An alarming development in Minnesota. A recent education proposal by former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page and Minneapolis Federal Reserve Board President Neel Kashkari has political scientist David Schulz and other public education advocates worried. “This language arguably would make the state less responsible for educational performance if it produced more private schools.” MinnPost
That would be nice to know. Nevada’s Charter School Authority does not know how many of its approximately 2,200 charter school teachers have only a substitute teaching license. Nevada Current
N.H. conservative group proposing charter school. A local New Hampshire organization tied to the conservative Hillsdale College is behind an effort to start a new charter school in the state’s Monadnock Region. New Hampshire Union Leader
Photo by Richelle Antipolo.