If you need another reason to vote NO on the Charlotte School bonds, here it is! Recently I received a ?friendly? email from an individual that works for an architectural firm building schools in Mecklenburg County. Someone at the Charlotte Chamber suggested the contact, probably because of my vocal opposition to the school bond referendum.The email began:

    While there may be various issues that must be addressed on the teaching and curriculum side, I want to bring to your attention the facilities side which is often ignored. I firmly believe that man creates the built environment and then the built environment creates man – that the buildings we live in immensely influence our behavior. There are many studies conducted world wide that have studied the impact of the built environment on human performance, including school designs and how it influences the student performance.

My response:

I respectfully disagree with your premise that a ?building creates a man.?  There is much more to a ?man? than a building he might work or live in. I have visited countries a great deal poorer than America, and have met mighty men and women of great character, with successful, hopeful attitudes. If we allow buildings to ? immensely influence our behavior? then I find little hope for making individuals responsible for their behavior.

I appreciate your desire to share with me the current research correlating student achievement with facilities. I am very much aware of these types of studies and their findings. However, education research is one of the weakest scientifically controlled researches that exist. There are studies sighting just about anything anyone makes money off of, as enhancing student achievement. While buildings are important, the classroom teacher is much more important.
 
I do agree a clean, well ventilated, and lighted room is important, common sense plays a factor in knowing this fact. As a former teacher, I expect health and safety issues to be addressed. As a community we must spend each education dollar as efficiently and effectively as possible. Right now our country spends over $550 billion annually on K-12 education, and academically we score well below other countries that spend less.

CMS is expecting to spend $3.7 billion in the next ten years just on buildings.  If this occurs property taxes are going to skyrocket (unless other county services are stopped). Right now the county is experiencing many middle class families moving away for lower property taxes. This exodus of middle class families has already happened to many of the urban areas around the country. Washington DC, Detroit, Atlanta, LA., etc. etc. The rich can afford the taxes, and the poor live off of the government. The quality of life for everyone quickly declines when this situation repeats itself. Meanwhile, the government controlled education establishment is not successfully educating children of poverty.

While your core business is building buildings, a school?s core business is academic performance. Therefore, we must put every dollar we can save into the salary of successful teachers not the appearance, or ?dollar saving? enhancement of buildings costing millions more than necessary.

In the late 1990?s CMS built Phillip O. Berry Academy. Your firm did not build this school, but the firm was extremely committed to student achievement enchantments, as yours. At that time the cost was around $50 million. In the first year of operation this school was one of the lowest performing in the state, and it has not improved greatly since then.  I could tell you example after example. Recently I have come to believe that government school systems like building beautiful schools to make the public believe the quality of the building is the same quality of education taking place in the building.  In fact, with all the government mandates imposed upon government schools, it is easier to build an impressive building than educate students.

There has not been any response to this reply.  Wonder why?