Thousands more schools for kindergarten through 12th grade will open with new roofs, walls and wiring. Not since the Baby Boom years of the 1950s and '60s has the school construction industry been so busy. With cost at a premium, schools are being built or fixed to best expand them for growing student enrollments and community needs, upgraded for computers, new security measures and other technology, or simply to keep the worst of them from falling in on students and teachers. Enrollment is rising rapidly.
Buildings are in bad condition.
New programs for technology are cutting into space needed for kids. The average U.S. school is 42 years old, typically built in the post-World War II years when births peaked at 4 million annually. Today, in the midst of a baby boomlet, a record 52 million children are attending 88,223 schools. Many buildings are simply too old. They used inferior materials.