I agree. My husband is a city school teacher, he works in a building that does not have consistent heat, water or lighting. His kid's desks are older than he is and most are damaged. How can we make these kids want to come to school when it is a mouse and roach infested hole?

Overall, I think that correcting existing infrastructure will have a more beneficial effect than building new roads and so forth.

Too many of our schools are in need of renovation and this could do the trick. Why not upgrade existing buildings and, while we're at it, make them greener? Presumably, someone in Central Office has more specific knowledge of what's required to bring the schools into this century.

Some City schools appear to be at the point where the best thing you can do for them would involve a quart of kerosene and a match, and certainly those can be rebuilt from scratch. This has been done in the past (Francis Scott Key comes to mind, but that was over twenty years ago). Others have been gutted and the shell refilled with new facilities (Cecil Elementary, James Mosher Elementary). But it seems as though the multiple money crunches that BCPS has gone through in recent years have pushed much of this renovation back, and the city appears to be back to duct tape-and-paper clip repairs.

I've said it before: if we care so much about our kids, then our schools should be palaces, shrines to education rather than the political football they've been for so many years.

As a teacher, I agree the buildings are in bad shape and need major over hauls. The other problem is the lack of respect for property that the students have. Last year my school had a brand new computer lab and by the middle of the year half of them were not working or missing parts. Students were also graffitting all over and the poor custodians had to keep up to clean it.

Good point, Claude. And, according to the governors association, it looks like fixing existing infrastructure will create more jobs, more quickly. Lord knows we need that.

I find the idea uplifting, but overall it doesn't address the problem. At TMHS we received a grant that gave us 2 new computer labs. One of these labs is in a teacher's classroom and the other we aren't allowed to actually use (according to the principal) because things will get broken. Under that logic, a new building would really cut out my options.

Claude: I like the quart and match idea. We are in a building that has so many problems we keep hearing "the system should have shut it down" from people in facilities. My angry response is "But you didn't! So now either fix or or shut it." I am so sick of hearing that we know what to do for kids (SPED, Facilities, whatever) but refuse to do it that I am about to scream. I know that times are tight, but as a school leader, parent of kids in public school and educator the funding isn't my issue. Yes, it's a selfish attitude, but if CNI can afford to still operate and we can continue to pay for some of the stuff at North Ave. and PDC, we can begin to shift that money to where it might actually do some good, namely the classrooms and the kids.

I believe that Obama's plan is being dealt with by some at North Ave. and there is a plan being put together. I also believe that just like the car companies, everyone and their mother is going to jump on the idea Obama has floated and he darn well better put up the cash. Time to make good on promises Mr. President Elect.

It does make some sense to me to put money towards infrastructure where we would see people working and things looking and working better. This is a better plan than simply giving it away with no plan. Wow, now that I have written this down it seems clear that since it makes sense it won't happen:-)

As for the old, "We can't give kids better because they don't know how to take care of it" MAN I HATE THAT CRAP! When did the computer lab get destroyed? Were the adults in the room? Was it unlocked? Did lessons get done that taught kids how to take care of things? Was there accountability? Did students see some buy-in to getting the lab and having it? I have been in schools where we ran our own network and ran it wide open -almost no filter on Internet, full access to operating system and installing programs, no silly policies about not being able to add printers and such and guess what? Nothing bad happened. We had one kid go to a porn site, caught it, brought the parent in and it didn't happen again. We had a few files moved without permission, dealt with it and life was good. To juxtapose that with North Ave ITD super secret lock down, I have a teacher who is trying to access our on line grade book and her browser needs to accept cookies. Try as I might (even with remote help and my school system admin log in) I can't get it working. When I suggested that we install Firefox I was told we can't do that because it's not on the list of secure programs. Oh, the tech acknowledged that it would work, that it was far more secure than IE, but we couldn't do it. Now someone needs to come out and re-image the machine. That's a great use of time and money and energy.

Okay, going to my happy place, calming cleansing breaths, ranting over, bringing myself down. All better now.

Finally, about the kids destroy everything (I heard the same thing from a principal once about why teachers couldn't be trusted with a copier, "You know teachers don't take care of what they have." Said she. "So you'll trust me with 25 kids but not with a stapler?" Said I. Let's say that comment didn't go over well, but we eventually did get the copier and yes it was jammed all the time and only a few people bothered to take care of it. Hmmmm). Maybe people take more pride in what looks good and figure out quickly when adults aren't really willing to spend the money on them that they deserve. Just a thought, not a rant:-)

IO, I could do an all-day rant about ITD, from the 30 second Kenny G loop that runs repeatedly when you're on hold, to the numerous sites from which we're blocked because they fall into a generic category. How many teachers have built their own websites of resources to share, which we can't get to because they're "personal pages" or blogs?

The other thing about computer labs is that they rarely give the kids the access they need. Numerous articles have pointed out that computers get used much more if they're actually in the classrooms. Labs will often go dormant.

Fortunately, AAA appears to be committed to putting as much money into the schools themselves as possible. My only fear is that he doesn't do this to the point where getting centralized support is compromised. In some areas I see this as a real possibility.