It's a a few months old, but I just saw this
excellent column by Jay Mathews arguing that the quality of a school has little to do with the quality of the school building. Reminds me of an elderly black school board member I once spoke to, who scoffed at the notion that his schools needed extra funds: He said, "Abraham Lincoln learned to do math on the back of a damn shovel."
Well, his reference to Mamaroneck High School, to which I went, is misleading. The school is not a good school because of the condition of its building. The school is a good school because the parents of the children that attend the school pay $40,000 per year in property taxes, which taxes are used to pay for competent teachers and administrators. Give the kids a crappy school or a sparkling new school and they will learn with good teachers. The quality of the building is irrelevant.
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