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Report: Many Mass. Schools Too Big

A new state report has found that about one-quarter of the state's public school buildings are larger than needed because of poor planning based in part of poor predictions of future enrollment.

The study by the Massachusetts School Building Authority, a quasipublic agency chaired by the state treasurer, found that many of the underutilized schools are in Boston, Cape Cod and western Massachusetts.

Some districts built schools that were too big or expanded existing ones too much as they rushed to secure funding from state education officials before oversight switched in 2004 to the newly created building authority. The authority set more stringent funding requirements.

The authority decided to examine capacity after visiting some new schools in the last few years and finding enrollment was hundreds of students below projections.

This program aired on May 2, 2011. The audio for this program is not available.

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