The Buncombe County Commissioners are weighing the merits of building two twenty-first century schools. The county’s newest schools were built in 1986, and the architecture for learning environments has changed considerably since then. Students and teachers are rallying for the new construction, but some commissioners consider the new schools a “luxury,” ill-afforded in the current economy.
The proposed city projects would need an additional funding source, and even proponents say they don’t know where the estimated $61 million more would come from.
Of course, the schools are supposed to be green as [expletive deleted]. It is expected private investors could a take advantage of tax credits to grow the national debt and displace more teachers from the state budget (except we have all been told government money is not fungible). Demonstrating the definition of insanity misattributed to Einstein, advocates want a repeat performance of what school board member Lisa Baldwin called a “fiasco.” Attempting to green the [expletive deleted] out of Enka High School, the county contracted with a solar company that failed to get the necessary financing, and now blames Big Utility.
For more information, see the nice and informative article by Jake Frankel in the Mountain Xpress.
