In some ways, today’s article on the state’s five-year school construction needs in the N&O is way behind the curve. I talked to News 14 Carolina about the projected ten-year needs in early March, and I blogged about the five-year needs more than two weeks ago.
On the other hand, the N&O article records the State Board of Education’s (SBE) response to the report that North Carolina has $9.7 billion in school construction needs over the next five years. First, they believe that the survey underestimates the state’s needs. There is no evidence of that; there is simply no motive for school districts to underestimate their needs/cost estimates on the survey. Second, there is talk about implementing state requirements, rather than recommendations, for school construction. This would be a disaster, as the SBE would single-handedly push school construction costs way up by requiring larger classrooms, more specialty classrooms, more expensive construction methods and materials, and the like.
According to the article, Wake Superintendent Bill McNeal argued, “There’s a relationship between facilities and retaining and recruiting teachers,” McNeal said. “There ought to be standards. Absent that, we will have inferior schools that won’t allow us to do the things we need to do.” This is the type of nonsense we will hear until the bond referendum is defeated in November.
