The Name Game In Public Schools

When naming public schools, school districts tend to avoid presidents and are more likely to opt for animals. For example, “In Florida, nature names for schools increased from 19 percent of schools built before 1958 to 37 percent of schools built in the last decade,” Jay Greene of the Manhattan Institute found. In fact, “Of almost 3,000 public schools in Florida, five honor George Washington, compared with eleven named after manatees,” Greene notes.

Meanwhile, “In the last two decades, a public school built in Arizona was almost fifty times more likely to be named after such things as a mesa or a cactus than after a president,” Greene notes.

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