Public education in the United States has reached a critical point. Over the last 20 years, polling has shown that Americans are divided when it comes to their satisfaction with the K–12 public school system. There is a clear need for American schools to offer a broader portfolio of educational opportunities to students, to equip them for a full range of possible futures.
Beyond questions of curricula, recent polling also shows that nearly two thirds of Americans are in favor of federal investment in public school buildings. And schools need the investment. The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated that the country’s public schools require $380 billion just to meet standards of good repair—never mind climate resiliency and decarbonization
In June 2020, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that about 54 percent of all public school districts in the US need at least two major systems updated or replaced in most of their school facilities, and about 26 percent of all districts need at least six systems updated or replaced. The report called out the severe health and safety risks to students, educators, and community members from the “hazardous conditions” of public school facilities, noting the number of schools that had to close even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. A June 2021 NBC news story detailed the scope and scale of these problems, particularly in low-income school districts.
A Green New Deal for K–12 Public Schools addresses these long-term issues of health and environmental inequity, educational inequity, economic inequity, and structural racism by offering equitable goals, priorities, and $1.4 trillion in funding for our K–12 schools through federal Climate Capital Facilities Grants, Resource Block Grants, and expansion in Title I funding over the next decade. Without it, we risk deepening these existing inequities between facilities conditions, per pupil spending, and teacher retention rates, that contribute to poor health, educational, and economic outcomes for majority BIPOC school districts and communities.
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