06/02/99- Updated 12:44 PM ET
Daylight, cool air boost test scores

By Tamara Henry, USA TODAY
Most educators say spanking-new school buildings - or, at best, well-maintained facilities - help learning or boost standardized test scores.

Education Secretary Richard Riley sees a "direct connection"
between the settings in which students learn and the quality of public education, "more so today than ever."

Riley believes that computers, other technology and use of light in modern buildings are "a big part of learning. But another big part of it is the general environment of the school."

A 1992 study of five Canadian schools by the Alberta Department of Education found that natural light, rather than traditional artificial lighting, is beneficial. With daylight, student attendance increased 3.5 days a year; the extra vitamin D generated by sunlight helped reduce tooth decay; the average growth of students was 1 centimeter (about half an inch) more than those enrolled in artificially lighted schools; and scholastic performance improved.

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A 1996 study of large urban high schools in Virginia found a relationship between building condition and student achievement. Student achievement was as much as 11 percentage points lower in substandard buildings compared with that in above-standard buildings, after controlling for other socioeconomic factors.

A 1995 study of overcrowded schools in New York City found that students in such schools scored significantly lower on math and reading exams than did similar students in underused schools.

A 1991 study found that District of Columbia students in buildings in poor condition had standardized achievement scores that were 6% below those at schools in fair condition and 11% below those at schools in excellent condition. The researcher controlled for other variables, such as a student's socioeconomic status.

"The biggest factor is air conditioning," says Glen Earthman, professor emeritus at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, who directed four studies in the 1990s on the relationship between building condition and student achievement and behavior. "Studies have indicated that human beings work best in an environment of 68 to 74 degrees. "

But Mark Shellinger, superintendent of schools in White Pine County, Nev., which has severe construction needs, sees little connection between achievement and facilities.

"I don't think that student achievement and buildings have anything to do with each other," says Shellinger, who boasts of healthy improvements in standardized test scores despite the crumbling facilities in his county. "The only connection they have with the school facility is that in order to be able to do some of the specialty areas, you have to have a school facility to meet that need, like in science."

Daniel Duke of the University of Virginia says: "There are some who question whether we will ever be able to prove it conclusively. I am sympathetic to their position because it is difficult to draw direct links" between whether somebody learns and what kind of conditions they learn under.


Secretary of Education Richard Riley (AP)."Virtually everyone probably can think of at least one occasion when they learned despite the setting," says Duke, director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for Educational Design. "Memoirs and autobiographies are full of accounts of students who were undaunted by peeling paint, temperature extremes, poor lighting, cramped quarters and other pathologies of place.

"I cannot deny that people are capable of learning in spite of the setting. The issue, however, is whether they learned as much or as well as they could have in better surroundings."

Duke adds that the relationship between learning and facilities may be so personal that it varies from one student to the next.

"When we combine statistics, we can't show where one design always works best because there is tremendous variation between learners," he says.

Contributing: Anthony DeBarros