Joe, At the risk of being accused of shameless self promotion, I draw your attention to my study of school buildings here. “Buildings Don’t Teach Students: North Carolina should concentrate on what goes on inside the buildings”
I looked at my former charter school in Tucson, Arizona and found:
Lost in this discussion is the fact that buildings don?t teach students
anything. A dramatic illustration of this concept is found in BASIS
High School in Tucson, Arizona. Newsweek magazine ranked BASIS third
among all high schools in the nation. [more recently ranked first] BASIS achieved this prestigious
ranking in a building that offers only 60 square feet per high school
student compared to North Carolina?s average of 168 square feet per
high school student. BASIS?s building cost $9,242 per high school
student compared to the North Carolina average of $23,356 per high
school student. At least in this case, this cramped and inadequate
building did not prevent BASIS students from performing at an
exceedingly high level.This is dramatic evidence that what goes on inside school buildings is
much more important than the size or the cost of the building. When
North Carolina?s adults learn this fundamental lesson, North Carolina?s
students will then and only then reap the high levels of educational
performance they deserve.
But as you note, Thales at $7,407 per student has BASIS beat.
