This paper discusses the policy and political issues surrounding school construction, and it illustrates how infrastructure banks would work to address this challenge. The paper explores the problems of overcrowding and crumbling schools, details the struggle many communities and states have in expanding their efforts to solve these problems, and reviews the policy and political issues within the current school construction debate. The paper argues for the establishment of state or regional school construction infrastructure banks to help capitalize and leverage state and local resources and ensure customization and flexibility for the variety of schools that exist. The paper also explains how school infrastructure banks are the most efficient vehicle that the federal government can use to empower states and communities to address their new facilities issues. (Contains 14 endnotes.) (GR)