Test the water and HVAC systems just as much as the students

Pay attention to school infrastructure if we care about equity in education

Test the water and HVAC systems just as much as the students
If we care about equity in education, we need to pay attention to school infrastructure

When boilers failed at multiple public schools in Baltimore in 2018, teachers adapted by bringing in space heaters to warm shivering students’ hands. Kids huddled in their winter coats indoors. A full 60 schools had problems, though administrators were only forced to close eight that had major mechanical irregularities to heating problems, according to The Baltimore Sun.

The infrastructure failures of Baltimore schools symbolize the overall lack of investment in black-majority cities and the people in them. People who blame black leadership and residents’ choices for the conditions of their neighborhoods and schools obviously won’t invest in them. No less than the president of the United States faulted the leadership of the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, representative for Maryland’s 7th Congressional District, for what the president called a “rat and rodent infested mess.”

When something goes wrong in black neighborhoods, it isn’t long before you hear the reflexive criticism “it all starts at home,” or “if only they weren’t that way” — “they” referring to black people. Sure, poverty, crime and educational parity are real issues that black people face, but how high can we fly if the very ground beneath us is crumbling?

A January 2020 report by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Applied Public Research found that “[p]roblems with heat and cooling accounted for lost school time of more than 1.2 million hours, equivalent to more than 179,000 days, over the last 5 years, representing about 80% of the time missed.” The condition of a CONTINUE READING: Pay attention to school infrastructure if we care about equity in education