America's schools are in such disrepair that it would cost $271 billion just to get elementary and secondary buildings back to their original conditions.

In a report released Tuesday, the Center for Green Schools estimated it would cost twice that -- or $542 billion over the next decade -- to get them up to date. In a foreword to the report, former President Bill Clinton says, quote, "we are still struggling to provide equal opportunity" to children and urged the first federal study of schools' buildings in almost two decades.

Clinton and the green schools group urged a Government Accountability Office assessment on what it would take to get school buildings up to snuff.

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