Maybe one day Metro will adequately fund public schools and lobbyists will have to hold a bake sale to build a convention center

34 Metro Nashville public schools need leaky roof repairs (and at least one has rats in its vending machine):

However, there's a lack of funding in a bad economy, and that seems to be the problem for half of the schools on the list.

Tuesday's torrential rain made the roof leaks at Bordeaux Enhanced Option Elementary School so bad that Dora Curtsinger thought “it's bad enough to where it should have been fixed already."

Even the students wondered what was with all the water inside their school.

“Obviously, other schools may have a leak, but nothing to the extent of what you may have seen at Bordeaux,” said Metro Schools spokeswoman Olivia Brown.

Even schools that are having success in the classroom are behind in repairs. U.S. News and World Report recently ranked Martin Luther King High School as 30th on their list of America's Top 100 Schools.

In the same article, the principal, Shunn Turner, is quoted as saying the roof leaks, kids have to eat lunch in the hallways because the cafeteria is too small and rats sometimes raid the vending machines.

When asked where MLK ranks on the renovation list, Brown said, “It is not at the top of the priority list for renovations.”

And it all comes down to money.

But note that money is no object when it comes to building new convention centers.

And the brightest idea for education in the Mayor's office is to build charter schools. Metro can't afford to maintain the schools it has, but the Mayor wants to build charter schools.