Rebuild Schools, Create (Green) Jobs for Local CommunitiesMonday, December 1, 2008Posted by Bebe Verdery, Education Reform Director, ACLU of Maryland, under Education Post the next comment (14 so far) |
Imagine walking into a Baltimore City public school, noticing immediately the light streaming in through the windows, the attractive rooms where children are excitedly discussing their latest project, the sound of a flute coming from the music room. Could this be a Baltimore City school?
YES, IT COULD be, if Baltimore citizens and leaders team with President-Elect Barack Obama to combine the promises of school renovation with job creation. The effort could pay off in even greater terms if the new jobs also trained and employed the women and men in those local communities to do the work, and purchased materials locally — an investment that will help us build vibrant communities. And, greater again, if the renovations and construction used energy-efficient, “green” technologies.
The challenge is huge. Recent analysis shows that City school buildings need $2.7 billion in renovation/construction to meet industry standards. Current state and city funding, however, is not sufficient to even keep all of the boilers working. Children and teachers daily go to schools where the heat is unpredictable in winter and the classrooms are sweltering when the weather warms up. Air quality (important in a city with a high asthma rate) is poor. And, it’s just darn depressing to study in rooms with opaque plexiglass windows and go to recess on paved playgrounds surrounded by old chain-link fences. It’s tough to inspire creative learning in such places.
Is it audacious to imagine great public school buildings in Baltimore? There could be a wonderful synergy with Baltimore’s dilapidated school buildings, the President-Elect’s interest in school repair and job creation, cheaper green building technologies, and a growing local commitment for better school facilities. Some local efforts have already begun. The mayor and school system are studying alternative financing options to build 8-10 new schools and renovate others. The school CEO asserts that finding funding for school renovations is a top priority. Parents, students, and school staff have long called for major improvements.
Rebuilding schools can pay off tremendously — in job creation and community revitalization, as well as student achievement and teacher retention. Green schools cost a little more to build (2%) but generate savings twenty times that amount in the long term. It’s audacious but we could rebuild all of Baltimore’s public schools and create green jobs.
Mr. Obama, our children want to know — when can you take a meeting?
posts
Monday, December 1, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Ms. Verdery’s comments are very much on point. We cannot and must not, however, put all the weight on President Elect-Obama. Now is the time for all of us to take our concern, involvement and commitment to the next level. Now is the time for us to significantly increase parent participation in the Baltimore City Public School System. Now is the time for us to get back our parent organization. Now is the time for us to demand that for every year Baltimore City has slots that we have at least two (2) new green public schools built. And Now is the time for those city councilpeople, city delegates and city senators,that supported the slot amendment, to map-out a specific plan to significantly increase, improve and rebuild Baltimore City Schools with PROMISED SLOT MONEY!!! 2 New Schools For Every Year We Have Slots In Baltimore City.
Monday, December 1, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Thank you, Ms.Verdery, for your insightful and timely comments. Obama is the catalyst for green progress nationally. Delving to the local level, our Baltimore politicians are eager to cultivate working relationships with the business community as a whole. And these businesses are now savvy enough to realize it is to their benefit to be “green”. But perhaps it is time for all business in Baltimore to put their money, not in advertising their “greenness” per se, but in partnering and collaborating directly with a city school to fundamentally and positively change the way their future employees and customers think and feel about learning, the environment, and our culture. Grassroots collaboration among all stakeholders of the city schools is essential for academic and social progress. The Baltimore business community must come to recognize the importance of their role as a stakeholder in the advancement of public schools, not only through greening and job creation but also through building real, lasting, and healthy relationships with the communities they serve, and ultimately tap.
Monday, December 1, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Any concept that has the potential to provide jobs, and help to safeguard our enviorment is worth our consideration.
This is just one more example of an ordinary person doing an extraordinary thing.
Monday, December 1, 2008 at 11:08 pm
A wonderful vision! And I agree with Mr. Cheatham, also, that we must organize and mobilize as citizens to be sure the green revolution doesn’t pass over and exclude the majority of Baltimore’s citizens as the economic expansion of the 50’s and 60’s passed over us, and as the technological revolution since the 90’s has passed over us. Life expectancy for some segments of Balitmore’s population is worse than in certain agrarian regions of Asia, Africa, and South America.
To avoid the mistakes of the past, investment in green schools should be directed explicitly to provide employment income for Baltimore’s youth and unemployed adults–not simply as manual labor, but as technicians, architects, engineers, scientists and policy-makers. Learning to build green schools should BE the educational project of our students over the next two decades.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I recently started working with ACLU of MD and their education project and I’m very impressed with the work they do. Renovating facilities is a key ingredient in education. Several of my colleagues in undergrad and I keep in touch and most are at county schools. We often discuss the condition of the buildings and how it impacts teaching. Of course, students will benefit from a modernized and up-to-date school but people don’t realize how important this is to teachers as well. And if this brings jobs to the city, it’s a win all around for students, teachers, and the community.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Are you familiar with the work of the Health Schools Network? This group works with the EPA, CDC, Nat’l. Edu. Assoc., American Lung Assoc., Nat’l School Nurses Assoc., etc., etc. with the goal of cleaning up and greening up school building environments and protecting building occupants. Please check out their website: http://www.healthyschools.org/ At this site, also check out info on National Healthy Schools Day and what other states are doing to clean up their schools. NY has made great strides!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 2:23 pm
As a parent and a former PTA president who has wielded a paint brush more than a few times at her local school in the last 6 years, I always found it a bit disconcerting that I had to mobilize parents to advocate, and even raise private funds, to improve our school’s physical infrastructure and amenities. Shouldn’t going to school in a clean and well-maintained school be a right — not a privilege?
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Also check out the Coalition of Healthy Schools Symposium that is going on right now.
http://www.healthyschools.org/coalition.html
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Very well said Ms. Bebe Verdery. Is it really audacious to imagine schools that foster learning both by its physical and academic structure. An idea of creating green schools that are both built and staffed by the local community sounds like a great idea. I hope that your idea becomes a reality. Keep up the great work!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 1:03 am
I am a Baltimore City high school teacher, and I can assure you that imporving the environment and initiating green technologies in schools will not only make an environment for the students that is more conducive to learning, but will also make an environment for teachers that is more conducive to learning.
My concern, is that if we invest all of our hope in the new administration or business leaders we will once again be disappointed. Organizing, advocating for and mobilizing students, parents, teachers and community members is the only way that real change will be acomplished.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Thanks for all the instructive comments. I could not agree more with Mr. Monahan (and others). We are the change we seek.
Parents, students, school staff, those that care about their neighborhoods have to unite and call for change.
Money is always an issue but political will is a bigger issue. If advocates send a message that decent school buildings are a necessity, a way can be found to do this.
We do have a unique opportunity with the Obama administration though, that we must grasp. The federal government plays virtually no role in school capital funding and the President-Elect is signaling that he wants to direct some amount of money there. We need to organize and let elected officials know that the funding is needed here, now.
Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Maryland currently has no legal requirement to allocate the education capital budget according to need! Rather, it has been a source of personal and institutional power for the Governor.
We need to mobilize parents, students, teachers, and citizens to ask the General Assembly to create a school construction law that directs funding to meet priorities in the following order:
1. unsafe or unhealthy schools
2. schools that lack facilities to support a full comprehensive education, including classrooms, labs, music rooms, theater, athletic facilities, etc.
3. schools that are wasting energy
4. school that are old or that provide unattractive learning environments.
Saturday, January 3, 2009 at 1:32 pm
My first child entered BCPSS in 1987 and graduated from the School for the Arts spring 2000. The four sibllings that followed have been public schooled, private schooled and now charter schooled. They range in ages between 26 and 9yrs old. I believe now as I did in those early years as a parent volunteer that each teacher or grade level teacher team needs an aid. A trained, paid assistant that can allow the teacher to teach the multiple grade levels that exist in each class, research, plan, grade and write lesson plans (not juat adequitly) but on a superior level. In the 90’s I wrote our then mayor, the Honorable kurt Schmoke, imploring upon him the desperate necessity of this addition to education. I give him a lot of credit. He started school reform in Baltimore City but a teachers aid was not a consideration. Even our current CEO thinks it’s an issue of cost and expense. When will we learn that if we are not educating our children then we may as well lock the doors and all go home. The salary of a teachers aid is far less than that of the average employee at city school headquarters and the teachers aids effect would be measurably apparent. I still volunteer and tutor and will continue to do so.
Mr. Obama, how can we make tis happen?
Saturday, February 7, 2009 at 8:59 am
Very well said, Ms.Verdery. If all the citizens of Baltimore would support this vision, together with the assistance of the government, I’m pretty sure success will come your way… and create more green jobs for the people, as well!