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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 3, 2000

News Release

New Study Shows Cost of School Modernization Has Reached $322 Billion

NEA research is first to contain state-by-state data

Washington, D.C. -- A study released today by the National Education Association (NEA) shows it will take an estimated $322 billion to repair and modernize America's public schools, and to provide them with adequate educational technology.

The report - "Modernizing Our Schools: What Will It Cost?" - is the first-ever state-by-state estimate of the potential cost of school modernization. (NOTE: The entire report is available at www.nea.org/lac/modern)

In 1995, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) estimated that America's public schools needed $112 billion for repair and updating. The NEA study goes beyond the GAO study in scope, and is based on a more comprehensive set of criteria than those used by GAO. It also includes two components - $268 billion for infrastructure (repair and construction) and $54 billion for educational technologies (including wiring and networking for Internet access) - in reaching the $322 billion estimated cost.

Estimated individual state school modernization costs - comprising both infrastructure and technology - range from nearly $51 billion for New York to $333 million for Vermont. The top 10 states are New York, California ($32.9 billion), Ohio ($25.1 billion), New Jersey ($22 billion), Texas ($13.6 billion), Illinois ($11.3 billion), Pennsylvania ($10.4 billion), Massachusetts ($9.9 billion), Michigan ($9.9 billion), and Utah ($9 billion).

"We often fail to recognize that where our students learn can have a dramatic impact on what they learn," said NEA President Bob Chase. "Research shows that students learn best when they are in safe, modern schools, with smaller classes and up-to-date technology."

While states are spending more than ever on school modernization, the crisis is eclipsing their efforts: the $322 billion total is 10 times what states currently spend annually on public school infrastructure, the report notes. "This problem affects schools in every part of the country - rural, urban, and suburban alike," Chase said.

"Although education is constitutionally a state responsibility, the federal government has a long history of providing states and localities with financial assistance for education when concerns of national scope have been involved," the report notes.

"We call on Congress to pass meaningful school modernization assistance, including interest subsidies and direct grants and loans that will help address these enormous needs," Chase said. NEA supports bipartisan legislation proposed by Reps. Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT) and Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) and Sen. Charles S. Robb (D-VA) that would provide federal tax credits to help finance $25 billion in bonding for school modernization. In addition, NEA supports legislation that would provide $1.3 billion annually for loans and grants for urgent school building repairs.

The American public strongly supports a federal partnership in helping address the school modernization crisis. A January 1999 poll by Republican pollster Frank Luntz found that 82% of Americans want the federal government to help modernize the nation's schools.

The $268 billion infrastructure estimate was obtained from 24 state infrastructure plans meeting the study's criteria for calculating funding needs. The other 26 states' data were obtained by matching them against comparable states (among the 24 with plans) with a number of comparable criteria, including age and condition of school facilities, enrollment data, poverty estimates, construction costs, and other variables.

The $54 billion technology estimate was based on an analysis of three existing state assessments that met the criteria for calculating funding needs. Those assessments were then used as the basis for statistically estimating the needs of all states.

The NEA report notes that "only about half of states have school infrastructure assessments that were conducted in the last five years," and few "have provisions to update their infrastructure assessments regularly. On the other hand, approximately three-fourths of states have technology plans - but most of them do not contain cost estimates."

The unmet funding needs of $322 billion, the report says, "represent a fiscally conservative estimate. It is likely that if states systematically assess and cost out unmet school modernization needs that the total will be much higher."

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The National Education Association is the nation’s largest professional employee organization, representing more than 2.7 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support personnel, school administrators, retired educators, and students preparing to become teachers.