Educating Buffalo

We are starting to see what a billion dollars can do for Buffalo.

I'm not talking about downtown development. I'm referring to the $1.1B Joint Schools Construction Project that is reshaping and reinventing Buffalo Public Schools.

According to Buffalo Business First, phase II of this massive 5 phase program is now complete with a price tag of $327M. This brings the total investment to date to $500M.


Photo: The Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts Theatre
under construction. Credit.

The scope of this project is simply mind boggling. The past three years, combined with the remaining three phases expected to be completed by 2010, will have brought Buffalo from an underscoring, under performing system to a modern progressive educational model for the rest of the country.

Money well spent.

Thank you James A. Williams. Thank you for bringing your vision to Buffalo.



The key to economic development in this city is an educated work force. The key to socio-economic reform is an educated youth.

It's exiciting to have learned that the old Kensington High School is slated to be included in the Joint Schools Construction Project. The school, dating back to 1937, is one of only a handfull of art deco buildings in the city. It is now the home of the Olmsted School for the Gifted and Talented.

Photo: The former Kensington High School at 319 Suffolk Avenue