My mother just told me that every single year Congress votes out funding for school construction

[EraOfResponsibility]

she it's because congress believes it's the job of the states to build schools, not the government.

Inner-city schools and poor rural schools get screwed again. by another stimulus. :(

[TeamJordan23]

1. I agree. A lot of schools are in shambles. nm

[CharmCity]

2. Haven't you noticed the trailers in nearly every school yard?

Thank eight years of GOP "leadership" and our anti-tax state legislators.

[bbinacan]

3. Where I live

a big part of my local property taxes go to schools.

[Lugnut]

8. Same here.

The local schools are all severely overcrowded. Property owners simply cannot afford the tax increases it would take to pay for either existing building expansion or new buildings.

[Thrill]

4. I think the House will put the school funding back in

Because I think Obama wants it

[DrZeeLit]

5. Yes, that's how they see it because Education is not a "right" and not mentioned in the

Constitution.

And those items not bound by laws in the Constitution are a matter for the states.

Maybe we should start some movement to make education and health care a RIGHT of all U.S. Citizens.
I don't know how we can live and be citizens without either one.

[OhioBlue]

6. There is money in the stimulus bill for school construction

as I understand it. I think it does require some local match and community support tho. I listened to a guy from USDA tell about how the current stimulus bill was going to increase their budget by three-fold and they have a program for building schools.

My opinion of what happened in Ohio under the Gov Taft(R) administration in Ohio was that the money for building new schools went to granting contracts for his buddies to build crappy buildings. Some school districts thought they had a great chance at getting State money for new buildings and passed levies, donated or demolished their old buildings and ta da got a shiny new building to consolidate a bunch of kids. The problem has been that they didn't have the funding in place to provide for the maintenance. I live in the exurbs and the school boards didn't anticipate the growth in the number of students. This led to overcrowding in the one new big consolidated school with the leaky roof and the shoddy construction that gave Taft's buddies (the contractor that built it) a nice profit.

[EraOfResponsibility]

7. interesting n/m