Dear Schools: Teach Our Children Well

Here's my boy, on his first day of kindergarten. Today's his last full day of kindergarten. Nothing says tempus fugit like children.

The clock also is ticking on Central Grade School, the historic brick elementary across the street where Jackson attends. Will it still be open in two years? Or, worst case, will the district raze it, pocketing millions for its primo land value, as other Michigan districts have done?

That's a good question. And we've only a few weeks till my district decides about closing three more schools.

Elementary schools are closing nationwide, and the reason isn't some muddy mix of societal trends and inflation and rising property costs. It's a simple matter of numbers. Enrollments are declining because there aren't as many school-age children as there were 10 years ago. Population is cyclical: Baby Boom, baby bust, mini-baby-boom, mini-baby-bust. And that's where we are now, a mini baby bust. In many communities, birth rates began declining by more than 25 percent in the mid-'90s. Add to the mix programs in many states that allow students to attend new charter schools on the public dime, and we've got empty classrooms across the nation. It's simple math.

Yes, it's a problem, and school districts are handling it by closing elementary after elementary. There are a number of issues here that affect all of us, whether we have kids or not, and I've written about many of them (see links below). But beyond those very important issues is something new that I'm concerned about-- the big picture of school-construction, nationwide.

School Deconstruction, Meet School Construction
In March I received a press release titled "Record School Construction," that began: "Dear Colleague, As you know, California's Proposition 1D passed on November 7, 2006 and authorized $10.4 billion in education construction in California. Similarly ambitious construction agendas are arising across the nation for Education." The release directs us to a new online catalog of firms that provide constructions services to school districts.

So there's that -- record construction -- and then there's a record number of schools closing.

So is the right question this: What the...?

What comes to mind right now is .... Journalism Rule No. 1: Follow the Money. Because this needs some explaining.

I realize in some cases, things need updating and populations shift, but none of that is happening on a record scale. What is happening is that as schools are shuttered, billions are going to construction and renovation. My district, which is closing in on shuttering its fourth, fifth and sixth elementaries in a few short years, has simultaneously undertaken massive renovations of two of the least populated elementary schools, stripping those schools to their bones and redoing them in high style. Why? Are we short of money, or are we not?

On top of that , billions of dollars were spent in the '90s to accommodate the mini-baby-boom that graduated several years ago. My own district built new junior and senior high schools. And today, to keep them filled, they're shifting elementary students (sixth-graders) up into junior high, creating even more empty classrooms in elementaries.

The thing I've heard no one mention is this: With all that mid- to late-90s construction, every district nationwide already could see that the mini-baby-boom was ending soon. Most if not all the kids who would populate these newly built junior and senior highs one day soon were already born--and there were definitely too few of them. What were school boards thinking when they asked for bonds and paid for bricks, foundations and new desks? Did they expect that 25 to 50 percent more children would just ... materialize?

The cost to folks in my district for those mid-'90s bond issues has been $270 a year on average. For five years worth of needed classroom expansion? Wouldn't Quonset huts been a better choice?

What it's looking like is that I'll be paying $8,100, all told, for this: Building unnecessary schools in farm fields, closing vibrant and historic neighborhood schools, subsidizing the local building trade, and, possibly, watching my son spend in hour commuting on a bus that's chugging $3-a-gallon fuel.

What does this teach our children?
Related Links: Two Essays on Central Grade School
—You can find a reprint of an essay on my neighborhood school at YourPlace. The story won first place in this online magazine's first essay contest, and I remain honored.
—For a look at the land-use and community implications of school closing, check out my essay at the Michigan Land Use Institute's Elm Street Writers Group, where I float some ideas for co-use of facilities.

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