School Construction Going Forward

The Star Ledger ran an editorial on Sunday that addressed the issue of where do we go from here, now that the SCC is broke. While it is my sincere hope that our elected representitives stand up to the State Supreme Court and refuse any future funding the Ledger's suggestions deserve a closer look.

1. "Is the SCC even necessary? Couldn't the state Treasury Department, which handles other state construction, take over? Eliminating a level of bureaucracy that has failed seems like an idea worth exploring."

Outstanding idea. If the infrastructure is already in place at Treasury let's use it.

2. "land earmarked or purchased for schools must be protected against the day when construction money is available. The blocks of abandoned buildings the SCC purchased must be razed, not left to become fire hazards and drug dens."

How can you argue.

3. "Design and construction must be standardized, with a choice of several model schools -- good designs that can be modified to fit the idiosyncrasies of each site and personality of each neighborhood. If districts want extras, they should have to raise the money to pay for them."

Actually, why don't we standardize all school design. The Department of Education should have done this years ago and mandated that all towns use one of the standard designs. It would have saved taxpayers millions.

Over the past week Ken Adams over at Smadanek has done an excellent job at dissecting the correlation between spending and successful school report cards. The bottom line is that spending more money does not lead to better performing schools. It's easy to throw money at a problem as it makes it look as though the politicians are doing something, but it is time for honest discussions about the societal factors that lead to academic success.