Principals discuss the conditions of their school buildings in a new report by the Ed Department’s National Center for Education Statistics. The report looks at nine environmental factors in school buildings (including physical condition, air quality, air conditioning, and lighting) and the extent to which principals believe those factors are interfering with the ability to deliver instruction to students. The report also looks at approaches for coping with overcrowding and the ways in which schools use portable buildings.

The bottom line? Between 63 percent and 92 percent of principals are satisfied with their permanent buildings (depending on the environmental factors). Although close to half of the principals also indicated that at least one or more of the environmental factors interfered with instruction to some extent.