This comment was posted in response to this morning’s commentary on the neglected schools of Detroit:
“As a long time D.R. blog lurker, I finally decided moved to post. For the past 30+ years my work has been that of an environmental science evaluator of mostly urban public schools on behalf of occupants and the organizations that represent them – not for district management. I think we have missed a very large boat — great leaders – yes!; great staff – yes! but without schools that are in acceptable condition, nothing else matters — great leaders and great staff don’t come to, or else end up leaving schools that are falling apart. It is impossible to teach or to learn effectively in such schools. People are sickened and absent. Books, and other materials destroyed and unavailable. Mold, lead and asbestos, as well as leaks, broken windows, chipping and flaking paint all conspire to make a school unworkable. If we don’t resolve these conditions now, nothing else can be successfully achieved.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why lurk in the shadows? Your voice is needed.
Another sickening part of this sorry state of affairs is the willingness of federal officials to bak financial arrangements and direct funding for facilities construction and upgrades in charter schools but not public schools.
Of course, before the feds were so heavily invested in education, states and districts had their own explicit and tacit policies that allowed for serious disrepair and indifference to some school facilities while others were kept up or were marvels of new construction.
That pattern of selective indifference to public schools and attention to charter school facilities was written into the No Child Left Behind Act and continues in the Every Student Succeeds Act.
The Clinton administration ushered “outcomes only” thinking into eduction with the “Goals 2000 Educate America Act. along with standards-driven reforms and testing…all under the banner of accountability. The Goals 2000 Educate America Act as modified by Congress also killed any hope for federal “opportunity to learn standards” especially linked to public school facilities and resources for instruction.
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From the images I’ve seen and stories I’ve heard, I can’t believe OSHA, the department of public health, and, heck, even the CDC aren’t investigating Detroit Public Schools. When teachers, staff, and students get ill, I hope they sue and sue big.
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Our city just issued a lead alert. A neighboring district that uses our city’s water will begin providing bottled water for their students. I wonder what our district will do, especially as many of our buildings are extremely old and likely have lead pipes. I wonder what effect the environmental lead exposure has had on our students who have been consuming lead-tainted water from before birth. Could this explain part of the achievement gap? The chronic exposure mold is bad enough, but to have children consuming lead literally from the first drops of formula is unspeakably reprehensible.
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Why aren’t people in jail over this?
😡
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Now I would say that this is a turn-around school. It was made this way “on purpose” in order to be turned-around. People have no choice anymore when their lifelines (schools) are systematically destroyed, and the solution ala the FEDs is PRIVITIZATION. It’s the: DESTROY in order to then BRING A NEW ORDER. We are pawns of the elite few.
D.R. Lurker, You must speak out. What do you have to lose? Answer: NOTHING to lose and EVERYTHING to gain that is right and good.
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Update on our situation. While the neighboring district using our city’s water is providing bottled water to its students, our district has blanketed the students’ families with robocalls saying that the drinking water is just fine. In an unrelated note, a student came past my classroom and punched a hole in the window in the hall. I reported it immediately and just as immediately began wondering how long it would take to be repaired. You see, when a window was broken out last April, it took 8 months to repair. So would anything earlier than the end of October be an improvement?
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Before 1990 the Union would step in and close down the building.
That stopped when Randi came to NYC.
The City Council was obliged to pass the teacher whistle blower law,
but elected officials still look to the Union.
The Union is still running away from my school,
though I discovered that the vapor extraction system beneath this toxic site
had been disengaged.
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