School Buildings Falling Apart

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/america-school-buildings-bad-shape-133335895.html

This article asks the question: Does attending a run-down school affect students' achievement levels?  I would like to comment on this question.

It says in the article that there is a positive correlation between how good the school's shape is and student achievement, so what could be some reasons for this?  One reason which I think would be that if students are in schools that are falling apart, they might begin to think that "If the school isn't even cared for, how can the school care for me?"

This argument makes sense to me because if you are in a hospital that is falling apart, you would question their ability to take the best care of you.  I don't think there is a difference between a hospital and a school because both are imperative to our society.

However, I don't think that there is necessarily a causation between these two things because something else could probably cause both of them to move together.  With this, fixing up our school buildings would probably add more things that can help students such as computer labs and more books in the library.

What really matters is to help students succeed in any way possible.  If that means fixing our school buildings, then so be it.  However, that can only get us so far, we need to hire good teachers.  The definition of a good teacher is one who cares about their students and doesn't want to see their students fail at all.