School facilities are the literal foundation for the learning that takes place every day in some 13,000 school districts large and small. Building and maintaining them is a gargantuan financial lift—an estimated $49 billion per year for new schools and major capital projects nationwide, and $46 billion a year for maintenance and operations, according to a 2016 joint report by the 21st Century School Fund, the National Council on Facilities, and the Center for Green Schools.
This Education Week special report is all about the concrete—and equally crucial—topic of school facilities and what it takes to assure that the nation’s 56 million schoolchildren have a modern, fully-equipped, well-maintained school to attend, and a place where all that theory and educator experience can be put into practice.
