What Are Our School Building Needs?

It is common knowledge that there is a grave shortage of school buildings in the United States. In many communities, the average size of classes is ranging far above the desirable maximum of 25 pupils. Forty or more pupils in one room is not unusual. Some schools have had to resort to "double sessions," a plan which requires half the children to attend school only in the morning, and the other half to attend only in the afternoon. School basements and school libraries have often been converted into makeshift classrooms. Buildings which should be retired are still in use. These are the ways the shortage makes itself felt.

Reasons for the Shortage

There are many reasons for the shortage, some well known, some little understood. For about 18 years, from 1930 to 1948, hardly any schools were constructed. During the depression of the thirties, credit was restricted and interest rates were high. In those times of almost universal belt tightening, the public often would refuse to support bond issues for new schools. The expenditure for school construction throughout the Nation in 1934 was less than one-sixth of what it had been in 1930. Government relief measures were inadequate to meet the need.

In 1941 conditions began to improve, but World War II forced the Government to place restrictions on building materials, and much less was spent on school construction than during the worst years of the depression. In 1944, the low year, only $54 million were spent for building schools throughout the whole United States. Until 1948 less was spent each year on school construction than had been spent in 1930. The Korean war further delayed construction, but expenditures for new schools have mounted steadily since 1944. In 1954, only a decade later, a total of more than $2 billion was spent in this Nation for new schools, but still the shortage continued.

Like Alice in Wonderland, the people of the United States found that as far as the shortage of classrooms was concerned, they had to run faster and faster in order to stand still. The reason was the great rise in the birthrate during and after World War II. Between 1930 and 1939, an average of 2,437,400 babies were born each year in the United States. Between 1940 and 1949, the figure was 3,166,600, and

between 1950 and 1954, it was 3,882,000. An estimated total of 4,091,000 children were born in the United States in 1955.

More than the high birthrate contributed to the shortage of school buildings. Not only are there more children in the Nation at present, but a higher percentage of them go to school than in the past, and they remain in school longer. This is a sign of great social progress— something to cheer, not to mourn-but it does require additional school buildings. State legislation steadily extends the age of compulsory school attendance, and laws barring child labor grow more strict. Every State now requires that a child attend school through the age of 16; 4 of these keep children in the classroom through the age of 17; and 5 more States, through the age of 18. All States require school attendance by children 8 years old, and 37 States demand that children begin school at the age of 7. Five set the beginning age at 6.

The long-range view of increasing school attendance is extraordinary. In the past 80 years, the population of the United States has more than tripled, but high-school enrollments have been multiplied by about 75! Obviously, high-school buildings should have been multiplied by about 75 during the same period, but partly because of the 18-year school building vacation caused by depression and war, this did not occur. There never have been enough school buildings in this or any other nation to enable all children to go to school. America simply has not had time to build up to its ideals. The low birthrate which prevailed during the depression has saved the high schools from being overcrowded during recent years, but soon the secondary schools will be besieged by new pupils, as the elementary schools are now. The shortage of school buildings essentially is a reflection of the fact that universal education is more than a law or an ideal. It is something which must be built, which this Nation has agreed to build, but which it has not completely built yet.

The fact that change is constant in this Nation contributes further to the shortage of school buildings. People move much more than they used to. Drawn by new industries begun during the war and by less calculable forces, countless families have left their home States during the past decade. The result has been far more drastic shortages of classrooms in some regions than the increase in the national birthrate would indicate, and empty classrooms in others. From 1940 to 1950 the population of the United States increased 14.5 percent, but the three Pacific States as a group had a population growth of 48.8 percent. Four States suffered a net loss in population during the same period.

Such population shifts often create problems in the deserted region. as well as in the place to which families move. Fewer people remain behind to pay off bonded debt on schools which have already been built but are not yet paid for.

Another kind of population shift which creates problems is that from the city to the suburbs. Many large cities have empty classrooms in spite of an acute shortage of school space all around them. A surplus of classrooms in one place cannot be applied against a deficit in another.

New Duties of Schools

Another big reason for the shortage of school buildings is the great expansion of school duties described in the section on "What Should Our Schools Accomplish?" This is another aspect of the American people's need to build up to their ideals. Nearly every time new courses of instruction are added, more room is needed in the school building. The big change from schools concerned mostly with teaching the fundamental skills of the intellect to schools attempting to offer vocational education, college preparation, and all else in the modern high-school catalogue, almost automatically outmoded existing school plants. As has been pointed out in the section on organization, bigger schools were needed to make practical the bigger, more highly specialized faculties and to make maximum use of elaborate equipment. The 1-room schoolhouse, and even the 2- and 3-room schoolhouse, became as old fashioned as the wooden plow.

There is one more big reason for the great demand for new schools: Americans want a better quality of school building than ever before, just as they are demanding homes and automobiles and almost everything else of better quality. The standard of living is up, and schools are not to be left behind. It is easy to say that the ideal school is Mark Hopkins at one end of a log and the pupil at the other, but most Americans want their children in well-heated, well-ventilated, fireproof quarters, with the best lighting obtainable for young eyes. They want separate classrooms for each grade, and they do not want the classes too large. They want auditoriums for school plays, lunchrooms where children can eat, and gymnasiums for basketball games. They want school buildings to be handsome both inside and out. They want at least 5 acres of lawn, parking space, and playgrounds to surround each elementary school, and 10 acres for each high school. In short, the American people are not inclined to stint themselves when it comes to building schools. This has been proved time and again by boards of education and citizen committees working with school architects in all parts of the Nation. It is easier to get a bond issue passed for a good school than for a poor one. The school building apparently has become the chief public expression of American concern for children. Often the school is the finest building for miles around, a center of community pride as well as community activities. One of the great reasons why new schools are demanded is that there is so much new hope and new energy in America. Much of this new hope and energy is built or kindled by schools themselves. It is not unnatural that the success of the American system of education is one

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of the causes of the need for more educational facilities. If Americans believe strongly in the advantages of education, they must believe equally strongly in providing the facilities where education can take place.

The Extent of the Shortage

There is a great deal of conflicting information on the size of the Nation's classroom shortage. Although the range of these estimated needs is wide, there is one common factor which runs through all of them: the shortage is immense.

The task of compiling figures to show the Nation's total building need would appear at first to be a simple one: ask each school district what is needed, total it for each State, and add all State totals. Then subtract the number of classrooms being built, count the number of children born but not yet in school, and divide their number by the number of children expected to be in each classroom. Thus a projection of need is born.

Regrettably, this system is not infallible. There is no uniform test of "need"; it may be one thing in one community and something entirely different in another. There is no national agreement on the number of children of a certain age to be taught in a single classroom, and assigning a low number of pupils to a classroom (which means more classrooms) runs one head-on into the problem of teacher supply. There is no certain way of knowing that a building finished today will not be far from the center of community population in the next several years, and there is no way to know for sure that buildings anticipated for the future will be assured by bond elections which have not yet been called.

Moreover, there are variances in the number of buildings which the States and Territories have said they will need. For example, when the United States Office of Education obtained results for Phase 2 of its school facilities survey, one Territory reported that by September 1959, it would need 4,271 classrooms. The same Territory reported, in answer to a questionnaire sent out by this Committee, that by September 1960-1 year later-its classroom need would be 11,672. This is a difference of 173 percent. One State reported its 1959 need as 28,126 and its 1960 need as 43,530. Still another State said its 1959 need would be 26,698 classrooms, but that in 1960 it would be only 3,490.

These are flagrant examples, to be sure, but they point up the confusion which arises when an attempt is made to survey the total classroom need in this country. Much of the confusion comes from a lack of communication between the school districts and the States, on one hand, and the States and the Federal Government, on the other, compounded by a difference in the definition of terms.

This Committee is not persuaded that there is a high value in pinpointing the national building need, so long as it is certain that the need is within a certain range. Building needs are always local, and they can change by alterations in community attitudes toward the school program. The chief purpose of national estimates of school needs is their effect on national legislation.

Nevertheless, this Committee attempted to determine, from the chief State school officers, an estimate of the total national building need. One purpose of this survey was to determine whether the States and Territories are keeping up with their building need, getting ahead of it, or losing ground. Simultaneously, an attempt was made to determine the existing and projected need for nonpublic school buildings, but the information available on this subject was so fragmentary that it was discarded entirely. The summaries dealt with here are public school need only.

The Committee's survey questionnaire went to all States and Territories, and was returned by 41. These 41 stated their total need for classrooms for the 1955-56 school year was 165,693. When projected for all States and Territories on the basis of the school enrollment represented by the 41 States and Territories, the total classroom need for the entire Nation is 198,625 at present. If the expected enrollment of 1959-60 were enrolled now, the need would be for an estimated 375,000 classrooms. This 1959-60 need will be affected favorably by construction between now and then, and unfavorably by retirement of buildings presently in use and by population shifts away from existing buildings. How much of the 1959-60 need will be met by new construction cannot be known since it is a matter for future determination. The present construction rate, based on figures furnished to this Committee, however, is less than 60,000 classrooms per year. If this rate continues or decreases, simple arithmetic shows the need has no chance to be met.

Three-fourths of the present need, or about 150,000 classrooms, is caused by a backlog of shortage; and the other fourth, or 50,000 classrooms, is stated to be due to increased enrollments. Thus the backlog can be expected to diminish very slowly. These are the figures reported to this Committee.

Of the 41 States and Territories which reported, only 10 said their present building program was gaining on need. Twelve said they were holding their own, and 19 said they were losing ground. Thus only 10 out of 41 are eating into their backlog of building requirements, while the remaining States and Territories either are managing only to keep up with increased need without affecting backlog or are losing ground to an ever increasing cumulative need.

While forecasts of future need are not strictly calculable, neither is future cost. Construction costs vary from year to year and from one part of the Nation to another. If needed reorganization of school