SCHOOLS THAT TEACH: A Blueprint for the Millennium.

• Author: STANTON, MICHAEL J.
• Position: Updating school building designs

Architects share the responsibility for creating safe, well-designed, and stimulating classroom environments.

ANTHROPOLOGISTS are fond of examining a civilization's rains to recapture its essential values. What was important, they ask, to this specific culture? The anthropologist hypothesizes that a society will invest with grandeur or beauty the public buildings that symbolize its highest aspirations or house its greatest values.

What would such an examination reveal about U.S. culture? What do public buildings say about the nation's values? What if a future anthropologist contrasts public elementary schools with America's sports stadiums, airports, train stations, government buildings, or prisons? As an important symbol of the community's commitment to educational excellence, today's school buildings would deserve a failing grade.

What, though, if the future anthropologist digs in St. Louis, Mo., at the site of the Gateway Schools. The city's math and science magnet school complex focuses on providing "real-life" learning through experience. The entire school complex is a living, learning laboratory, where exploring outdoor nature paths and planting gardens are as common as, textbooks and classroom discussions. The 19-acre site accommodates more than 1,300 students in the elementary and middle schools, in addition to the Michael School (for orthopedically challenged students). Interactive displays are located throughout the complex, as are special areas where students create experiments and science projects on their own. St. Louis architect Michael Kennedy, of Kennedy Associates, Inc., even left sections of the building structure and mechanical systems exposed to exhibit its components.

The Gateway Schools, however, are the exception, not the rule. The anthropologist's most likely conclusion would be that 20th-century America did not value its children or their education very highly. Is that the conclusion we want our own children to make?

U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley has called America's school buildings a national embarrassment. Not only is the school population growing and needing more classrooms, but the educational infrastructure has been allowed to reach an indefensible state of decay and neglect.

The nation's schools are crumbling--simply worn out. A Congressional audit showed that one-third of U.S. classrooms need modernization and repair. The General Accounting Office found that one-third of America's public schools, attended by some 14,000,000 students, require "extensive repair or replacement of one or more buildings." This is just one aspect of the situation. Almost 60% of the nation's public schools reported at least one major building system (such as roofs, exterior walls, plumbing, or electrical power) in need of overhaul or replacement. About half of all public schools reported environmental problems, including inadequate ventilation, heating, lighting, or security. Most school buildings built before 1970 have reached the end of their useful lives, the result of years of deferred maintenance.

Moreover, calls for smaller classes and lower student-teacher ratios place...