When a school looks good, students feel good, which can lead to improved academic achievement, said education experts.
“Students pick up on the attractiveness of a school, and one way to communicateto them that they?re really important is to send them to a nice place,” said Douglas MacIver, a research scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore City. “And it?s not all that far-fetched [that student achievement would improve under those conditions].”
Phelps Luck Elementary School in Columbia started a physical overhaul in 1999. Since that time, the school?s culture has improved, leading to better test scores.
Studies have shown that student achievement has gone up in schools where significant physical improvements have been made, said George Jackson, spokesman for the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers? union based in Washington with 1.3 million members.
“We expect our children to learn in an environment where there?s good air quality, no mold or any other thing that?s hazardous, and where there?s good lighting,” said Jackson. “A lot of our schools are in terrible conditions, and we know that corporations wouldn?t tolerate that in their offices.”
Young people can internalize negative feelings about themselves in schools that are rundown, said Tara Brown, assistant professor in the College of Education at the University of Maryland, College Park.
“They understand that when the facilities are not in good shape, it affects their motivation to succeed,” she said.
Brown formerly taught in Boston in a school she described as “prison-like.”
“It was in an old industrial building, and most the classrooms didn?t have windows,” she said. “We always felt like if the facilities were changed, we could have solved maybe 25 [percent] to 35 percent of the behavioral problems.”
