Giving Compass' Take:

• Carolyn Phenicie shares how Senators are pushing for a federal review of the condition of  U.S. schools in light of recent stories about inadequate facilities. 

• How can funders help create a sustainable solution to the problem of U.S. school infrastructure? 

• Learn more about the infrastructure problems plaguing American schools. 

Senators added language to the pending U.S. Education Department spending bill that would require the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office to study the state of America’s outdated school facilities for the first time since 1995.

The bipartisan amendment, sponsored by Democrats Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, would require the GAO to study 10 specific areas, including heating and air conditioning, the presence of contaminants like lead and asbestos, and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The report would be due 18 months after the bill takes effect.

Serious problems with the fitness of America’s aging school buildings have made national headlines recently, from broken heaters in Baltimorethat forced freezing young children to wear coats indoors to students being exposed to dangerous level of asbestos and lead in Philadelphia schools to teachers in Detroit staging mass sick-outs to protest their crumbling, sometimes vermin-infested schools.

“It’s actually a really big issue. It’s the second biggest public infrastructure after highways, but because it’s done so locally, there’s sort of a lack of appreciation of the scale of the issues and the problem,” said Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Foundation, a group that aims to improve public school facilities.

Read the full article about the condition of U.S. schools by Carolyn Phenicie at The 74.