Neil's Spotlight House bill upgrades school buildings, improves student achievement
May 15, 2009
(5/15/09) The House passed the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act that invests in our schools to boost our economy now and help prepare our children for the jobs of the future -- building on the efforts of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It will boost student achievement, enhance teachers’ effectiveness, generate savings for schools and create clean energy jobs.
According to calculations by the Economic Policy Institute, this legislation’s construction funding would support as many as 136,000 new construction jobs – many in areas that will give our workers the valuable skills they need to excel in a clean energy economy.
Upgrading school buildings to make them more energy efficient and more reliant on renewable sources of energy will lower costs to taxpayers, help reduce pollution and transition us to a clean American energy economy.
School buildings should be safe and healthy learning environments for our children. The quality of a school isn’t just important for children’s health – it’s critical for their learning. But, according to recent estimates, America’s schools are hundreds of billions of dollars short of the funding needed to bring them up to good condition.
This bill gets us closer to our goal of providing every child with a world class education. A safe and health learning environment has been proven to improve both student achievement and teacher recruitment and retention.
