Legislation that would direct more than $100 billion into building and upgrading school infrastructure around the country was introduced Wednesday by Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the House education committee’s top Democrat.
would be tailored for schools in high-poverty areas, and would direct money to high-speed broadband internet as well as school construction. In a summary of the legislation, Scott and other Democratic lawmakers also said the bill would create 1.9 million jobs—that latter figure is via an estimate from the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that leans left on economic and labor issues.
“We know that poor school facility conditions impact teaching and learning and disproportionately plague schools that serve low-income and minority students,” Scott said in a statement about the bill. “On the anniversary of [the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision from the Supreme Court], we must recommit to fulfilling its decades’ old promise—that all students have access to equal educational opportunity, including equal access to safe and modern learning facilities.”
Democrats also highlighted that schools would need $197 billion to be brought up to good condition. That study was based on a survey of facilities coordinators and others at districts representing 1,800 schools around the country from the 2012-13 school year. The IES survey also found it was an average of 44 years since the construction of the main instructional building at schools.
Scott’s bill would institute $70 billion in federal grants for school infrastructure upgrades and another $30 billion in tax credits for that purpose. However, not all the money would come from Washington. The legislation envisions leveraging additional state and local resources to reach $107 billion. The bill would also create a national database for information about the state of public school facilities.
The legislation has six other Democratic lead co-sponsors in the House, but no Republican lead co-sponsors. In January, Senate Democrats introduced their own . The National Council on School Facilities has made its own push for new school infrastructure money.
A significant spending bill backed by Democrats doesn’t necessarily stand a great chance of passing Congress. However, if President Donald Trump’s administration does ultimately craft a detailed infrastructure spending plan, there’s at least a theoretical chance school construction could get a boost in some fashion. Trump has indicated interest in a general infrastructure spending program to the tune of $1 trillion.
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