ERIC ED479494: Do K-12 School Facilities Affect Education Outcomes? Staff Information Report.

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by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 479 494
EF 006 299
Young, Ed; Green, Harry A.; Roehrich-Patrick, Lynnisse;
AUTHOR
Joseph, Linda; Gibson, Teresa
Do K-12 School Facilities Affect Education Outcomes? Staff
TITLE
Information Report.
2003-01-00
PUB DATE
40p.; Produced by Tennessee State Advisory Commussion on
NOTE
Intergovernmental Relations.
AVAILABLE FROM
For full text: http://www.state.tn.us/tacir/PDF_FILES/
Education/SchFac.pdf.
PUB TYPE
Reports
Descriptive (141)
EDRS Price MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage.
EDRS PRICE.
DESCRIPTORS
*Academic Achievement; *Educational Facilities; Environmental
Influences; Physical Environment; School Buildings
IDENTIFIERS *Tennessee
ABSTRACT
This report explains that there is growing evidence of a
correlation between the adequacy of a school facility and student behavior
and performance. In general, students attending school in newer,
betterfacilities score 5 to 17 points higher on standardized tests than those
attending in substandard buildings. School facility factors such as building
age and condition, quality of maintenance, temperature, lighting, noise,
color, and air quality canaffect student health, safety, sense of self, and
psychological state. The report further explains that research has also shown
that the quality of facilities influences citizen perceptions of schools and
can serve as a point of communitypride and increased support for public
education. Of special importance is the effect that facilities have on time
inlearning, which is universally acknowledged as the single most critical
classroom variable. Further, according to the most recent school
infrastructure inventory by the Tennessee Advisory Commission on
Intergovernmental Relations, 26 percent of the. state's 1,590 K-12 schools are
rated "fair," "poor," or "in need of replacement." However, almost half of
allstate schools need some upgrading of facilities. The estimated total cost
of these needed renovations, repairs, and replacements is $1.5 billion.
(EV)
Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made
from the original document.
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Tennessee Advisory Commission on
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CO
Intergovernmental Relations
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Staff Information Report
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MI
Full text available:
2003
January
http://www.state.tnAis/tacir/PDF_FILES/
r-)
Education/SchFac.pdf
'-.
TACIR
ublicaition. Polky
Staff Onformation [Reports, Staff
riefs, Staff Technical
Fast Facts
[Reports and Staff Working Papers and TACO
are issued to promote the mission and objectives of the
Commission. These reports are intended to share
information and research findings relevant to important
public policy issues in an attempt to promote wider
understanding.
Only reports clearly labeled as Commission [Reports
represent the official position of the Commission.
Others are informational.
The Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations
Suite 508, 226 Capitol Boulevard, Nashville,Tennessee 37243
[phone] FAX [phone]
email: [email protected]
website: www.state.tn.us /tacir
3
Do K-12 School
Facilities Affect
Education Outcomes?
A Staff Information Report
The following staff have contributed to this report:
Ed Young, Ph.D.
Research Consultant
Principal Author
Harry A. Green, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Lynnisse Roehrich-Patrick, J.D.
Director of Special Projects
Project Manager, Editor
Linda Joseph
Publications Assistant
Teresa Gibson
Publications Assistant
January 2003
Do K-12 School Facilities Affect Education Outcomes?
Foreword
In 1988, more than half of Tennessee's school systems joined together and filed a lawsuit
charging the state with failing to fund all systems, rich and poor, equitably, and in 1993, they
won. In the meantime and after two years of deliberation, the Tennessee General Assembly
adopted a new funding formula as part of the Education Improvement Act (EIA) of 1992. The
plaintiffs were not entirely satisfied with that remedy and challenged it on three bases:
it did
not solve the problem of inequity among the systems in teachers' salaries, it should be funded
immediately and not phased in over six years as the legislature planned, and it did not provide
adequate funds to bring all school buildings up to modern standards.
The Tennessee Supreme Court agreed with the plaintiff school systems on only the first point
and did not agree that more must be done to help poor school systems renovate or rebuild
their schools. In fact, the formula increased funding for capital outlay dramatically. Before the
EIA established the Basic Education Program (BEP) and a new state formula to support it, the
state provided less than $12 million each year for capital outlay. The new formula includes a
component that generates more than $380 million in state and local dollars based on the
square footage required for the number of students each school system serves. The state
takes responsibility for half that amount, and the other half is required of local school systems
based on their county's ability to generate revenue for education.
School systems have
discretion to spend these funds for capital outlay or any other component of BEP; likewise,
they can spend other non-classroom BEP funds, such as those generated for transportation,
on capital outlay.
In the years since the BEP was implemented, school systems have increased spending for
capital outlay dramatically. Many new schools have been built, and many more have been
Nevertheless, school systems have reported a need for projects totaling more
renovated.
than $3.5 billion to build, upgrade or otherwise better equip their school buildings over the
next five yearsnearly $1.5 billion of that total is needed specifically for upgrades of existing
This figure is comparable to one calculated by TACIR staff in 1997 based on a
facilities.
In 1996, the GAO estimated that
study by the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO).
fifty-six percent of Tennessee's schools had at least one inadequate building feature and
Based on their
sixty-four percent had at least one unsatisfactory environmental condition.
information, we calculated a three-year cost of $1.7 billion for the period of 1994-97 to remedy
those conditions.
In the context of school reform, it is appropriate to ask whether Tennessee should spend part
of the relatively scarce resources we have available to us on upgrading school facilities. This
report makes clear that it is necessary to ensure that those upgrades are directly related to
things that make a difference in learning outcomes. We hope this report will be helpful in the
evaluation of this issue.
Representative Randy Rinks Harry A. Green
Executive Director
Chairman
iii
Do K-12 School Facilities Affect Education Outcomes?
TABLE OF CONTENTS
vii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Introduction
I.
I
Characteristics of High Performing Schools
A.
Effects of Physical Environments
3
B.
Facilities and Education Outcomes
C.
6
Research Findings
9
II.
Facilities and Time In Learning
III.
Evidence from a Comprehensive Virginia Survey
17
2I
School Facilities Litigation
IV.
K- 12 Facilities in Tennessee
25
V.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
29
v
Do K-12 School Facilities Affect Education Outcomes?
School buildings are
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
only a piece of the
education reform
There is growing evidence of a correlation between the adequacy of
puzzle, but they may be
a school facility and student behavior and performance. Almost all
a more important piece
of the studies conducted over the past three decades, including two
than we have
in Tennessee, have found a statistically significant relationship
between the condition of a school, or classroom, and student
understood in the past.
In general, students attending school in newer, better
achievement.
facilities score five to seventeen points higher on standardized tests
than those attending in substandard buildings.
The quality of the
learning environment
As far back as the 1920s, industrial research established the
is known to affect
factors employee
environmental
relationship between
and
teacher behavior and
productivity and morale, but these lessons have not been applied
In recent years, however, the
widely in educational settings.
attitudes toward
importance of school facilities has been increasingly recognized.
continuing to teach.
There are now eight states where the courts have explicitly made the
funding of capital facilities a part of education equalization remedies.
It is unreasonable to
School facility factors such as building age and condition, quality of
expect positive results
maintenance, temperature, lighting, noise, color, and air quality can
from programs that
affect student health, safety, sense of self, and psychological state.
Research has also shown that the quality of facilities influences
have to operate in
citizen perceptions of schools and can serve as a point of community
negative physical
pride and increased support for public education.
environments.
Of special importance is the effect that facilities have on time in
learning, which is universally acknowledged as the single most
In 2001, school
Every school year, many hours of
critical classroom variable.
personnel rated the
precious and irreplaceable classroom time are lost due to lack of air
ventilation breakdowns, and other
conditioning, broken boilers,
majority of their
No one knows the extent of those
facilities-related problems.
buildings good or
occurrences in Tennessee.
better, but say half
need upgrades
According to the most recent school infrastructure inventory by the
estimated to cost a total
Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations,
of $1.5 billion
twenty-six percent of the state's 1,590 K-12 schools are rated lair",
However, almost half of all
"poor", or "in need of replacement".
statewide.
schools need some upgrading of facilities. The estimated total cost
of these needed renovations, repairs, and replacements is $1.5
billion.
A 1996 GAO report
estimated that more
Policymakers should be concerned about the relationship between
than half of Tennessee
school facilities and student learning and achievement, not only
schools had one
because of health, security, and psychological issues, but also
to create and maintain optimum learning
because the failure
inadequate building
environments can undermine other efforts to reform education such
feature and two-thirds
as Tennessee's adoption of the Education Improvement Act in 1992.
had at least one
unsatisfactory
environmental
condition.
vii
Do K-12 School Facilities Affect Education Outcomes?
I. Introduction
Can school buildings and classrooms actually have a substantive impact on the learning
process that occurs within them? This is a question whose implications are too important to
be ignored and one that has been the object of study in recent years not only by educators,
but also by professionals in the fields of architecture, psychology, sociology, and ergonomics.
These studies have been conducted in rural settings in North Dakota, Texas, Georgia, and
Virginia and in urban schools in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Syracuse, and Milwaukee. Two
such studies were done in Tennessee.
The Commission has endeavored to find the answer to this question for several reasons:
There is growing evidence of a correlation between the adequacy of a school facility
and student learning.
If facilities do affect the learning process and school administrators and policymakers
are not taking this into account, it is possible that education dollars are not being spent
as effectively as they could be.
TACIR is committed to exploring the implications of its annual school infrastructure
needs survey for education policy.
In eight states, the adequacy of school facilities has become a component of
education equalization court orders.
The U.S. General Accounting Office estimates that up to fourteen million students go
to school in unsafe buildings that are hazardous to their health. Some of these are in
Tennessee.
Characteristics of High Performing Schools
A.
An examination of the relationship between school facilities and student achievement cannot
be done without examining first how learning occurs, and what factors facilitate or hinder
learning. What makes a good school? What do schools with high achievement levels have in
common? What do we know about optimal planned learning environments?
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, researchers concluded that, in general, public schools
were ineffective and that family-related variables such as income, race, education, and
occupation were the primary factors in explaining student academic achievement.
The
landmark Coleman Report, an early national study of public education, found that the relative
affluence or poverty of students' families accounts for seventy percent of the differences in
scholastic achievement and that differences in the level of school resources had little effect.
Well up into the decade of the 90s, school-based research was still concluding that a school's
rate of student poverty is the most important factor influencing student performance.
The problem with this finding, of course, is that educators have no control over the social and
Teachers have to work with the students who are
economic backgrounds of students.
assigned to them and do the best they can to overcome these obstacles.
Poverty of
background may be the most important factor in learning, but it isn't the only factor, and no
researcher has concluded that it is a factor that cannot be overcome, at least partially, by
other inputs into the education process. So over the past few decades, a large body of
Introduction
instructional and school effectiveness research has established the fact that these
early
claims were incorrect.
Further, this later research has identified variables that, all
or in part,
are under the influence and control of the schools and that, when addressed properly,
contribute to making schools more effective.
By universal agreement, the most important classroom variable is time.
If research has
established any relationship in education, it is that which exists between time and
learning.
Other factors (student-teacher interaction, teacher quality, and school leadership)
can have a
potential impact, but there are no within-school variables that have
a direct impact on a child's
learning other than time on task.
There is no shortage in the literature either of lists of widely accepted
characteristics of
effective schools. The items common to most are
a high level of family and community involvement,
4, an emphasis on basic skills,
1
effective leadership,
high expectations on the part of teachers and students,
40'
high levels of collaboration and communication,
frequent monitoring of teaching and learning,
oo°
focused professional development, and
toc
a supportive, safe, orderly, civil, and healthy learning environment.
One list that is of particular note stemmed from
a study of the Saginaw, Michigan, schools
that involved teachers and administrative staff in identifying the system's
most pressing
problems and priorities. The factor mentioned most often and ranked number
one was "clean
and orderly climate." Accordingly, that list of findings includes this item:
"The effective school establishes a well-
disciplined, secure, and wholesome learning
environment, and maintains clean and orderly
school buildings."
Claus and Girrbach
Most education research points to social factors
as having more of an influence on learning
than physical factors. The result is that physical factors
are ignored in educational planning.
Researchers may have overlooked the obvious. The "bottom line" to all reforms
in education
is improved academic achievementusually as measured by math and
reading scores on
standardized tests.
It is becoming more and more apparent that the learning environment
itself has a positive or negative effect on education outcomes.
The socio-economic status of students, the most important external factor
in learning, cannot
be controlled. Time in learning, the most direct internal factor,
can be controlled. Because
the physical environment has an important influence
on time in learning, and on other indirect,
but significant, factors in the learning process, policymakers should consider
a building-based
change process for school improvement.
2
Introduction
Affect Education Outcomes?
Effects of Physical
B.
"Obviously, the most important variables that influence
Environments
how students learn come from the genes their parents
impart to them and the home environment they create
physical,
influence
the
The
of
for their children. Then, in descending order, are
"built" environment is often subtle,
sustained, and quite
to
difficult
variables such as natural surroundings and conditions
measure with precision. But we all
beginning from the day of birth to the very day the
know from
personal experience
Only then can
student enters the school building
that settings do make a difference.
. . .
Most people concede that their
the building play any part in how students learn. Even
upon entering
inner feelings
a
if the variance the building environment can account for
cathedral are different from the
is slight, the important factor to remember is that there
feelings they experience entering a
is a portion of the variance that then can be controlled
cafeteria or a parking garage. For
the
man-made
that
proof
through efforts of educators and design professionals."
environment does affect how we
(Earthman and Lemasters, 1996.)
live and act within it one need only
business
world.
the
to
look
Commercial, retail, and entertainment industries spend billions of dollars annually to create
mood or ambiance. They pay close attention to the formation of space because they know
How many times have we judged the quality or appeal of a
that it affects their profits.
Individuals associate various feelings with their
restaurant prior to sampling the cuisine?
settings. The relationships among the actual, the experienced, and the perceived physical
environments are a somewhat neglected, but nonetheless important, area of study.
Buildings, settings, and environments are accorded symbolic value by those who use them as
Physical entities come to symbolize certain qualities, values,
well as by those who do not.
A school may symbolize opportunity, hope,
aspirations, and experiences for individuals.
stability, and a safe haven in a world of insecurity and transience or, to someone else, the
school structure may symbolize failure and oppressive authority. The physical environment,
It is the
however, rarely has direct unmediated impacts upon human health and well-being.
interaction of individual characteristics with physical features of the environment that we must
examine to understand how environmentsincluding schoolsaffect behavior.
As far back as the 1920s companies began to sponsor research into factors affecting the
productivity of their employees. These early studies, then known as industrial psychology,
and now as human factors engineering or ergonomics, were the first to establish the impact of
They showed that environmental improvements,
the work environment or human activity.
such as lighting, ventilation, and space utilization, were related to greater productivity and
higher employee satisfaction and morale.
Almost a half-century ago, the famous psychologist Abraham Maslow investigated the
behavior of subjects in three different rooms: a "neutral" control room; a "beautiful" room; and
Observations revealed that the subjects in the "ugly" room performed in
an "ugly" room.
Maslow concluded that the "ugly"
measurable and different ways from the others.
environment produced feelings of discontent, fatigue, and a desire to escape.
In 1966, Frederick Herzberg published his well-known "motivation-hygiene" theory of workers
in industry. He found that tasks assigned to workers, if designed properly, formed what he
called "motivators", or things that made the workers feel good. The effects were generally
Introduction
3
10