A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

President Clinton's Call to Action for American Education in the 21st Century

School Construction and Modernization

American schools face the twin pressures of rising enrollment and deteriorating buildings. To be ready for the 21st century, our children's schools should be safe and spacious places to learn. The schools of the future should be equipped with computers, new media and state-of-the-art science labs. Clean, well-maintained, up-to-date schools send every student a clear message: you are important to us. We take your education seriously. In order to keep faith with our children, we must ensure that our schools are prepared for the next century.

Distressingly, today our nation's schools, many built 50 years ago, are increasingly run-down, overcrowded and technologically ill-equipped. Too many school buildings and classrooms are literally a shambles. According to a report of the General Accounting Office, one-third of our schools need major repair or outright replacement; 60 percent need work on major building features--a sagging roof, or a cracked foundation; and 46 percent lack even the basic electrical wiring to support computers, modems, and modern communications technology. These problems are found all across America, in cities and suburbs and one-stoplight towns.

We have high expectations of our students, teachers and schools. But we cannot expect our children and our teachers to build strong lives on a crumbling foundation. In order to keep faith with our children, we must ensure that our schools are prepared for the next century. This is a matter of real urgency. This year our schools opened their doors to the largest number of students in the history of our republic--51.7 million. And enrollment is expected to continue to rise over the next ten years, breaking all previous enrollment records.

Because of the unique circumstance of record enrollments and often run-down school buildings, the President has proposed that the federal government for the first time join with states and communities to modernize and renovate our public schools. The President's budget calls for $5 billion over the next four years to help pay for up to half the interest that local school districts incur on school construction bonds, or for other forms of assistance that will spur new state and local infrastructure investment. This financing assistance can help to spur $20 billion in new resources for school modernization--a 25 percent increase above current levels over the next four years.

The Broward County, Florida, Public Schools already ranks among the largest school systems in the nation with more than 218,000 students, and it continues to grow at a phenomenal rate (the district estimates it is adding 10,000 more students a year). Although the district added 37 new schools and refurbished many existing schools over the past seven years, the district's projected capital needs over the next seven years total $2.4 billion. Funding from identifiable sources to date totals only $1 billion, leaving a shortfall of $1.4 billion. The county's use of 2,144 portable classrooms has earned it the nickname "the portable capital of the world." Thousands of other students attend classes in areas intended to be music and science rooms, labs or auditoriums. Meanwhile, the space crunch is impeding the system's efforts to make greater use of technology in the classroom, including meeting the superintendent's goal of providing a minimum of four computers in every classroom for student use and one computer for teacher use.

This school construction initiative is flexible. It will give communities and states the power to decide how to use the new resources. It will help those who help themselves--requiring local communities to take responsibility for this effort. And it will focus on sparking new projects, not merely subsidizing existing ones.

The federal government will do its part by subsidizing the interest that communities incur on school construction bonds or other financing mechanisms -- making it cheaper and easier for communities to finance school construction. Communities-- with appropriate assistance from states--must do their part by making a commitment in investing in their schools. They must approve and pay for local bond issues needed to repair old schools and build new ones. And they must provide adequate maintenance for today's schools so that they can continue to serve students into the next century.

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Last Updated -- Feb. 13, 1997, (pjk)