School facilities should be safe and healthy learning environments for students. But according to recent estimates, America’s elementary and secondary schools, and community colleges are hundreds of billions of dollars short of the funding needed to bring them up to good condition. Poor learning conditions aren’t just bad for students’ health: research shows a correlation between facility quality and student achievement.
Modernizing school buildings will help revive our economy by creating jobs and preparing workers for the clean energy fields of the future. And by ensuring students can learn in modern, updated, renovated and safer environments, this legislation will help prepare future generations to compete in a 21st century global economy. Specifically, this legislation will:
Provide elementary and secondary schools and community colleges with access to funding for modernization, renovation and repair projects
Provide additional aid to Gulf Coast schools still recovering from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
Ensure fair wages and benefits for workers by applying Davis-Bacon protections to all grants for instructional facility modernization, renovation, and repair projects
Modernizing school buildings will help revive our economy by creating jobs and preparing workers for the clean energy fields of the future. And by ensuring students can learn in modern, updated, renovated and safer environments, this legislation will help prepare future generations to compete in a 21st century global economy. Specifically, this legislation will:
Provide elementary and secondary schools and community colleges with access to funding for modernization, renovation and repair projects
- For K-12 schools:
- Authorizes more than $4 billion for elementary and secondary school facility projects over the next two fiscal years, and ensures that school districts will receive funds for school modernization, renovation, and repairs that create healthier, safer, and more energy-efficient teaching and learning climates.
- Allocates the same percentage of funds to school districts that they receive under Part A of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, except that it guarantees each such district a minimum of $5,000.
- Provides grants to states to help community colleges finance new construction, modernization, renovation, and repair projects.
- Allows grant funds to be used to match private donations to a community college capital campaign.
For Community Colleges:
- Requires the majority of funds to be used for projects that meet green building standards. Allows states to reserve one percent of the elementary and secondary funding to administer the program, provide technical assistance, and to develop voluntary guidelines for high-performing school buildings.
- Increases transparency by requiring school districts to publicly report the types of modernization, renovation, and repairs completed as well as the educational, energy and environmental benefits of such projects.
- Brings innovative projects to scale by requiring the Secretary of Education, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to disseminate best practices in school construction and to provide technical assistance to states and school districts.
Provide additional aid to Gulf Coast schools still recovering from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
- Provides $60 million over two years for public elementary and secondary schools that were damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Many students still attend school in temporary classrooms.
Ensure fair wages and benefits for workers by applying Davis-Bacon protections to all grants for instructional facility modernization, renovation, and repair projects
