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Los Angeles Unveils $578 Million Public School
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from an Associated Press report on next month's opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Los Angeles:
"With an eye-popping price tag of $578 million, it will mark the inauguration of the nation's most expensive public school ever. The K-12 complex to house 4,200 students has raised eyebrows across the country as the creme de la creme of 'Taj Mahal' schools, $100 million-plus campuses boasting both architectural panache and deluxe amenities. ... At RFK, the features include fine art murals and a marble memorial depicting the complex's namesake, a manicured public park, and a state-of-the-art swimming pool. 'There's no more of the old, windowless cinderblock schools of the '70s where kids felt, "Oh, back to jail,"' said Joe Agron, editor-in-chief of American School & University, a school construction journal. 'Districts want a showpiece for the community, a really impressive environment for learning.' ... Critics note that nearly 3,000 teachers have been laid off over the past two years, the academic year and programs have been slashed, the district faces a $640 million shortfall and some schools persistently rank among the nation's lowest performing."
I know that California's budget concerns go far beyond just the building of this school, but this is still the kind of irresponsible spending that got them into the mess they're currently in. If I were in charge of this project, I wouldn't want anyone to know about it right now.
No, but some graffiti or an earthquake will turn their precious fine art murals and marble memorial into nostalgia discussed in the teachers' lounge.
When I was going to high school in the late 90s and early 00s, I was one of the first classes to use the $80 million dollar "palace" of a high school that the local government built for the students. However, during my four years in high school, it became pretty apparent pretty quickly that just because it cost $80 million dollars to build doesn't necessarily mean it's worth $80 million dollars. As the result of no-compete bids and cronyism between the contractors and local government, by the end of my 4th year, the whole place was starting to fall apart and it was only about 6 years old at this point. I think one of the students literally managed to kick or hit the dedication stone into the wall.
I used to think the same thing, but then I realized something.
My daughter will not be getting the crap public education that other children get. She may attend public school, but I make sure that's supplemented with education at home. As a result, she is significantly ahead of her peers as far as the formal education is concerned, and she is already beginning to develop critical thinking skills ( that, frankly, most adults lack ).
My point is this; parents that care will make sure their children are well educated. Those that don't will provide future grunt labor needs. Our country can't survive without this critical resource. We can't all be astronauts, as the saying goes. As long as we are able to provide the basics ( reading/writing/math ) for the majority of citizens, our country will do fine. Those that need or want more education will always be able to get it, and those of us who want more for our children will always provide it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
From my own experience, even if you catch a teacher flunking students intentionally you still can't get them fired. At least not if they have tenure. New teachers make next to nothing, teachers who have their tenure make substantially more. So you have teachers that can't get fired and are making lots of money while also dominating water-cooler politics, and at the same time you have new teachers trying to make a difference while making next to nothing and trying to keep out of trouble with water-cooler politics. Yeah, after what I saw in high-school, I decided I would never become a teacher unless I was independently wealthy enough to be able to quit at any time for any reason. And you wonder why it's the bad teachers that tend to stick around.
If anyone wonders why anyone votes "NO" on bond measures and referendums, this is why. We all want good educations for our youth, but disproportionate allocation and spending like this wreak of corruption and misappropriation. Other nations leap ahead because they are actually putting real teachers in place, paying them well and firing the bad ones, and supporting students all across their country. Our system is so locally based that there is no way to ever lift up those in a bad tax base. Instead, the rich get rich public schools, and the poor get either terrible facilities or overfunded behemoths with sub-par teachers. It's really time to eliminate local school districts, and fund states equally. That way, when a state legislature passes more ed money around, it goes to the right places.
there are lots of little things like this that help the latest generation of swimmers go a couple fractions of a second faster than the last.
To which end the sport becomes a measure of both skill and technology, and the swimmers of today cannot be compared to the swimmers of yesterday even remotely objectively.