Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Hot school
Here's more cannon fodder for people with this bumper sticker.
Today was the first full day of classes at the Maryland high school where my wife teaches. The school is mostly un-air-conditioned, and the temperature inside the buildings reached as high as 85 degrees according to her indoor thermometer. Three students fainted or nearly fainted, and one was taken to the hospital after a 911 call. My wife (who teaches in the only room in the school without either windows or an air-conditioning unit) was so physically exhausted by the heat that she spent her last class period trying not to throw up, and she could not drive herself home.
You can blame this on funding for schools, I guess, or you could chalk it up as one reason why Houston is worth it. It may be hot and humid in Texas, but Texans would never think of sending students and teachers into an un-air-conditioned, poorly ventilated school during the heat of summer and expect these to be optimal conditions for learning.
Today was the first full day of classes at the Maryland high school where my wife teaches. The school is mostly un-air-conditioned, and the temperature inside the buildings reached as high as 85 degrees according to her indoor thermometer. Three students fainted or nearly fainted, and one was taken to the hospital after a 911 call. My wife (who teaches in the only room in the school without either windows or an air-conditioning unit) was so physically exhausted by the heat that she spent her last class period trying not to throw up, and she could not drive herself home.
You can blame this on funding for schools, I guess, or you could chalk it up as one reason why Houston is worth it. It may be hot and humid in Texas, but Texans would never think of sending students and teachers into an un-air-conditioned, poorly ventilated school during the heat of summer and expect these to be optimal conditions for learning.
Improvised @ 8:08 PM 
Collective Improvisation:
I only half-seriously offer Texas schools as paragons of excellence in this regard.
You're right that to air-condition a school costs money, and money for education is not inexhaustible. But one of the bumper sticker's points is that how we spend our money reflects our societal priorities. As expensive as it would be to outfit schools with air-conditioning (or transoms), it is not the most expensive public spending project I can conceive. I'm certain that the Pentagon is air-conditioned, for instance, and still has plenty of money left over for making the military's technology even more immeasurably superior to any standing army's in the world than it already is.
I also don't think the argument from the past is very compelling here. People built buildings without indoor plumbing for hundreds of years, too, but that doesn't make it an extravagance now. Schools were built (and still are in some places) without fire safety standards for a long time, but this doesn't mean schools that have them are indulgent.
I concede that I may be allowing my personal concern for my wife's well-being at work to fuel this particular rant, but that's not something I feel bad about. Nor do I feel bad about enthusiastically endorsing your call for a national siesta!
You're right that to air-condition a school costs money, and money for education is not inexhaustible. But one of the bumper sticker's points is that how we spend our money reflects our societal priorities. As expensive as it would be to outfit schools with air-conditioning (or transoms), it is not the most expensive public spending project I can conceive. I'm certain that the Pentagon is air-conditioned, for instance, and still has plenty of money left over for making the military's technology even more immeasurably superior to any standing army's in the world than it already is.
I also don't think the argument from the past is very compelling here. People built buildings without indoor plumbing for hundreds of years, too, but that doesn't make it an extravagance now. Schools were built (and still are in some places) without fire safety standards for a long time, but this doesn't mean schools that have them are indulgent.
I concede that I may be allowing my personal concern for my wife's well-being at work to fuel this particular rant, but that's not something I feel bad about. Nor do I feel bad about enthusiastically endorsing your call for a national siesta!
Posted by 
Caleb McDaniel on 8/31/2004 10:17:00 PM : Permalink
Hey P.M. -- Caleb's wife here. Your point about schools being funded by local and state governments is right on. That's what makes Bush's plan (No Child Left Behind) to control what every school in the nation does so wrong (and really not very Republican, either). He punishes them by taking away their funding, which isn't necessarily his to begin with. Rod Paige wrote an editorial in the Baltimore Sun pledging not to "throw money at problems" in schools anymore. I wonder if HIS office has air conditioning.
Posted by 
on 9/01/2004 06:53:00 PM : Permalink
