President Obama Tries To Stimulate Interest For His Economic Recovery Plan on the Hill
Tuesday, January 27, 2009SUSIE GHARIB: President Obama met with congressional Republicans today to sell his solution to the nation's recession: an $825 billion recovery package. His stimulus plan goes to the House floor for a vote tomorrow. It would pump money into job creation and infrastructure. Darren Gersh looks at one aspect of the reinvestment package: school modernization.
DARREN GERSH, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Choosing a school for your child? Phelps High School in Washington, DC has a heavy machinery virtual lab, high-tech architecture program and solar collectors, not to mention a working greenhouse.
GERSH: President Obama's economic recovery plan could pour $14 billion into making many other public schools just as technology and energy friendly as Phelps. Principal Michael Johnson says new technology makes his students more competitive in the workplace.
MICHAEL JOHNSON, PRINCIPAL, PHELPS CAREER HIGH SCHOOL: We want to be on the forefront for jobs for the future. So we essentially -- you think of the ideas and the path that President Obama has laid out. We have geothermal here. We have wind generators. We have solar. So our students are going to learn on the latest technology available.
GERSH: Then there's Anacostia High School. Forget solar collectors. Anacostia High hasn't seen a top-to-bottom renovation since it was built in 1932. This school and eight other Washington DC high schools are already slated for modernization. Architect Ed Schmidt says President Obama's stimulus plan could shorten the overhaul from a couple of decades to just a few years.
ED SCHMIDT, ARCHITECT, FANNING/HOWEY ASSOCIATES: We're still going to get to every single building, but the question is when. Are you telling somebody we're getting to your school in 15, 16 years or are we going to do your school in five years?
GERSH: In addition to speeding up the overall pace of modernization, Dan Domenech of the American Association of School Administrators believes the recovery package will help create thousands of jobs. He says many of those now-famous shovel-ready projects can be found at schools.
DANIEL DOMENECH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN ASSN OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS: This money would make it possible for them to do the work, which is exactly the intent of the economic package. The intent is to pump money into communities in America for projects that are ready to go so that that money can be spent immediately and have an impact on the economy of that community.
GERSH: But the cost for all this new technology would be steep. It's estimated retrofitting the nation's schools could cost $250 billion. And that doesn't include the cost for training teachers in the new technology or licensing and maintenance for the new equipment. Scholar Frederick Hess wonders whether allocating money for technology will be useful without proper oversight and training.
FREDERICK HESS, RESIDENT SCHOLAR, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: How are we going to make sure that in terms of accountability and in terms of transparency, that not only does this work well at model sites or when it's tested at Stanford University, but how do we make sure that this is actually cost effective in classrooms across the country?
GERSH: Those questions will need to be answered. But with many states now trimming education funding, the recovery plan may be the only way students who are living with history, will get a glimpse of the future. Darren Gersh, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.
