Warner: Fix failing military-base schools

Prompted by an investigation revealing that military-base schools across the country are falling apart, U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., and a bipartisan group of colleagues are asking new Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to make the issue a top priority.

According to the investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, 75 percent of Defense Department-run schools on military installations are either beyond repair or would require extensive renovation to meet minimum standards for safety, quality, accessibility and design.

The Pentagon has placed 39 percent of its 194 schools in the worst category of "failing," which means it costs more to renovate than replace them, reports to Congress show. An additional 37 percent are classified in "poor" physical shape, which could require either replacement or expensive renovations to meet standards, the study shows.

Some schools have tainted water and fouled air; others are so overcrowded that teachers improvise, holding class in hallways, supply closets, and in one instance, working in a boiler room. Leaks and mold are common. And outdated? One school in Germany was built by the Nazis.

"It makes no sense that American taxpayers are building schools in Afghanistan while these schools are falling apart here at home," Warner said Friday. "Our military men and women and their families deserve better than this."

Tens of thousands of children — from Georgia to Kansas, Virginia to Washington state — attend schools on military bases that are rapidly deteriorating from age and neglect, and fail to meet even the military's own standards.

In Virginia, all five schools on military bases rated below the military's expectations: Ashurst Elementary and Burrows Elementary at Quantico Marine Base rated as "poor," while Russell Elementary and Quantico Middle/High at Quantico and Dahlgren Elementary at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren were classified as "failing."

The strains only add to the emotional pressures on the sons and daughters of U.S. military personnel after 10 years of war and long, frequent absences. The average military parent is deployed three times, each lasting 15 to 18 months. Stresses on families routinely bubble up where soldiers' children attend class.

Altogether, parents of 220,000 children — including 116,000 of school-age — are currently serving in the military, many overseas. More than 86,000 children attend Defense Department-run schools across the U.S., Europe and the Pacific region.

"When a service member puts on a uniform, their family faces the unique challenges and sacrifices that come with military service and military children often contend with long separations from a parent and numerous school transitions," said the letter from Warner and the other senators to Panetta.

"Our military children should have educational facilities that enhance their learning, not facilities that cause distractions from learning or present real or potential hazards."

The letter has led to an audience this week with Pentagon officials who will brief the senators on plans for the future.

But addressing the problem will be difficult.

Other priorities — including spending on wars at a rate of about $2 billion each week — have overshadowed the needs of students from military families. All told, the mounting number of fixes and new schools would cost nearly $4 billion — around the same amount being spent this year just on drone aircraft.

That's bad news for families living on military bases — either for economic, career or security reasons — sending their children to one of 194 base schools operated by the Pentagon around the world, or 159 base schools in the U.S. operated by local school districts. Those students — about 150,000 in all — are likely to attend schools with significant structural deficiencies. Many buildings are nearly a half-century old.

Schools run by public systems on Army installations don't fare much better: 39 percent fall in the failing or poor categories, according to a 2010 Army report.

In a written response to the Center for Public Integrity investigation, the Pentagon's education agency, the Department of Defense Education Activity, or DoDEA, acknowledged that it "cannot keep pace with the types of renovations and maintenance needed when a school building goes beyond its useful life and the age of the building becomes a barrier to using these dollars wisely."

At Quantico, just 30 miles south of the gleaming temples of government in the nation's capital, students at Russell Elementary tolerate the consequences of relic air units, busted water pipes, and only one handicap-accessible bathroom, too small for some disabled children to navigate their wheelchairs.

According to the investigation, the classroom for students with severe disabilities, meanwhile, has a small restroom dating back to 1953, well before schools had to meet special education needs. It's a tiny space the size of a closet with little more than a toilet and sink with a dripping faucet. Parents say teachers have to undress children nearby and carry them inside.

The Marine base is in Prince William County, one of the country's more affluent suburbs. Its schools are more modern, the study showed. Over the past decade alone, the local district has built 26 new schools, some with dazzling campuses that stretch across former cornfields and cow pastures. It's an instance of the frequent inequities between the schools of military children and the nearby schools of everyone else.

"Some of the new schools in town make our schools look like a prison," said David C. Primer, who uses a 1980s-era trailer at the much-heralded Marine Corps Base Quantico to teach his German classes. Storms are noisy affairs that jostle the temporary classrooms.

"We are at a huge disadvantage because of this facility," said Kistella Mitchell, an active-duty soldier whose son graduated from the Quantico high school this year. The base's older schools have been rigged with plastic "power poles" to support technology, and teachers say fire marshals have cited them for using extension cords.

The military's education agency told the Center for Public Integrity that "none of our schools is unsafe and no school is a hazard to anyone."

Pentagon officials have recognized these substandard conditions for years.

Robert Gordon, the Defense Department's top official overseeing family affairs, said the Pentagon has taken steps in recent months to address deficiencies — creating the task force to survey base schools, evaluating the quality of education, and finding money to replace aging schools over the next five to seven years.

This fiscal year, Congress allotted $750 million to fix some of the base schools' shortcomings — a fraction of the need.

"Building schools is really expensive," said Joyce Raezer, director of the National Military Family Association, which for four decades has established itself as a respected voice advocating for families. "So how many school districts and school buildings will actually benefit from this focus, we'll see."