It is my belief that our society, at present, doesn t value teachers, and perhaps children not much more so. We seem to be more concerned with the performance of our retirement plans than we are the performance of our children. The pragmatic answer of course is that we have to compete for scarce resources. There are many competing needs among a plethora of institutions in our society. When we look at the needs of schools we must again balance an enormous array of concerns, from teacher quality and salaries to special mandated and voluntary educational programs.
Facilities are often far down the list.
The cost of facilities modernization is often an issue of perception. As design professionals are aware, the life-cycle costs of school facilities are the fraction of the costs associated with the entire operating budget of a school or school district. The solution engaged by larger school districts is of course to spread out maintenance and construction costs over time to accommodate this perception, but even this has not historically eliminated the need to focus on large school construction projects requiring public commitment of funds. I think it is our responsibility to educate the public of the value of providing optimal learning environments. We all agree that optimal learning environments matter.