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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."
a mosque?
Thanks in advance.
Yours In Astrakhan,
K. Trout
I think not. Why is this on slashdot?
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.
For half a billion dollars, we could have had half a stealth bomber.
UC students am cry
And they wonder why they have a $20 billion state deficit there
Or am I thinking of some other location?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I can't wait for my kids to be schooling like they were in Serenity. Nice green, luscious gardens with open sitting areas and touch screens with cool GUI effects.
I just have to ask...what is the state-of-the-art when it comes to swimming pools? I kind of thought we had that nailed down years ago. What, do they fill them with ferrofluids or some space age gel now?
Will they teach creationism along with evolution?
i would be happy to pay teachers and school administrators 6 figure incomes, provided they churned out highly educated students
but i'm sorry, if a teacher sucks, they should be fired. and unfortunately, for standing against this common sense measure, the teacher's unions has made themselves an enemy of higher quality education
the usa will fall in this world while other countries with a better grasp on how serious education is will rise. there really is nothing wrong with spending a lot of money on education. but HOW that money is spent, without any accountability, is going to destroy this country
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In one place? Must make beating younger students up for money real easy with the age spread. Even the most wimpy sophomore can always prey on the toddlers.
I bet such a luxury compound has some swanky digs for the guys at the top. They don't say much about that understandably. But heck, nothing is too good for the administrators.
What is this? Some kind of parody of everything that's wrong with America? Is the developer supposed to come out from behind the curtain and say, "you idiots! This was a test! You weren't supposed to actually approve this thing!"?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Schools such as RFK were built with funds from a bond measure passed by voters in the LA county area. The terms of this bond measure requires that funds be spent on construction, and forbade any other use. There was a very good piece on this issue that I've linked to: http://www.kcet.org/socal/socal_connected_online/video/blackboard-bungle.html
Bigger schools means teachers and students are seen less as humans and just another tally mark to the administration. I could see the benefit if they have some good technical classes so they would have good and up to date tools to work with but other than that, it's just not good.
That is about $138,000 per student. My private HS spent at least $60 million in a restoration (only) for 1200 students: $50,000 per student. I thought the restoration cost was higher. Residential construction is often $100-$200 per SF (square feet, 10 square feet is about a square meter for you metric FREAKS!). So $138,000 would be ~700 to 1400 SF per student. Thinking back fondly on grade school, we had 30 students in a room that was likely 30' by 30' or 900 SF. Given additional facilities, I would estimate each student had about 60 SF (30 x 30 x 2 / 30).
There is no doubt a school could be built for less. Is that better? Who knows.
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.
Dang. There's most of the district's budget shortfall, right there in this one half a billion $ + monument to waste and excess.
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.
You can bet there is one or more politicians claiming this as their legacy... like the grand new library they are planning for downtown San Diego.
Most people don't know that the LAUSD has been building schools at a completely insane pace. For the 15 years from 1997-2012, there has been an average of one new school opened every month! Sure, schools were neglected in the past, but there are tons of brand-new public schools in LA now.
One thing that I picked up from the article were the additional requirements imposed upon this project by siting it on a historic location. I've seen this situation before. Some group has a need, but no source for funds to accomplish their task. So they latch on to some agency with money to spend. The school district has one item on their charter: running schools. When someone else approached them with a project or precious piece of property to save, they should have run, not walked away.
Have gnu, will travel.
dollars in the education budget, like improving science? They could have probably added enough computers to the LA school system to guarantee access to all students. The number of dollars here is just mind boggling. When a school system like LA is dropping teachers right and left over budget problems where is the criminal investigation to put the people who signed off on this?
If they had spent this money on something other than a school you can damn well bet people would be bitching "think of the children".
This is a monument to the school board. It should be the head stone.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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.
Keep in mind that capital costs and operating costs are very different things when it comes to government accounting. Very often funds from higher levels of government are for capital costs only. Capital costs provide quick economic turnover which is something the government strives to do. If they hadn't built this school it doesn't mean the money would have gone to pay teachers. Not that I'm suggesting that the system is ok, just that you shouldn't necessarily criticize this particular project on these grounds.
With a price tag like that, the upkeep is going to be astronomical. When they upgraded our local school to have air conditioning, they couldn't turn it on because it would cost ~$25,000 just to start! They are also talking about turning a perfectly good grass field into astroturf at a cost of 1 million dollars.
I don't know about other states, but in CA once money is earmarked for construction (many times it's so-called "one-time" money, or money that came from a one time windfall), one is prohibited from using it for any other purpose. For instance, at my daughter's school district, the new annex just completed this year at the district office has leather couches, mahoghany accent tables, and marble floors in their reception area. All the money for the construction of this annex was earmarked years ago, when the economy was still "strong". Despite the fact that the actual monetary needs of the district are elsewhere (teachers anyone?), they cannot use the money for anything else, even though it would have made much more sense to go with cheaper materials and use the surplus from construction to fund instruction.
NO CARRIER
I assume that the entire amount was borrowed at interest from a bank?
Note that even central banks (eg. the Federal Reserve) are invariably privately owned.
eom
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
Lay off 3,000 teachers and blow a half billion bucks on a school building. Jesus Christ! It isn't the kids that need an education it's the School Board and the county government that are completely ignorant and stark raving insane!
No there are more teachers than jobs because teachers are getting laid off all over the nation because their unions don't have the pull to counter all the PORK spending that is not cut and continues to be added to budgets by more influential forces.
Plenty of jobs are underpaid yet they find workers who either want the job OR just NEED work. Some jobs are so low that Americans do not want them so then illegals take them; not because the job is so horrible but because the pay is too low for the work. Do we want teachers paid so bad that nobody wants to become a teacher BECAUSE the pay is so low.... then hire illegals to do the work? There are already good teachers who are doing other jobs because it takes a lifetime to make a good wage as a teacher.
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that is was built with loads of illegal labor help. Most likely the bulk of that money went to Mexico. What amazes me, is that so many claim that outsourcing to China (due to numerous illegal actions by China0 is killing America (and it is), while ignoring the fact that so much of the money to do work local takes a free ride to place like Mexico where drug dealers take their cuts. Sad, sad, sad.
This is the end of America.
The sideview reminds me of an incomplete deathstar with an indoor waterslide park.
AP photo with the lawn view containing a silver plaque looking eaarily similiar to a united federation of planets logo.
My view is that its great people want to go all out designing schools that look like a futurastic imperial fun park for our little stormtroopers. I sincerly hope that at least as much effort and resources are spent on actual educational activities.
However when adding what little I know of the real world budget situation in California as it relates to education my initial reaction would incur substantial FCC fines should it ever be aired in its entirety on broadcast television.
Mothef*ckin' magnets, how do they work?
It's a miracle for someone to get moar than a duhploma in Kalipornia.
That's a surefire way to get the public to vote no on every funding levy for the next 30 years. I've seen it happen with a $40M school.
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -- L. Long
Some day this will make a really great McMenamins!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Being Californian, I have to pay for part of it. California is one of the most ridiculous states in the nation, when it comes to financial decisions. And lawmaking. Basically all of politics.
No, there is no "-1 I'LL NEVER ADMIT BEING WRONG!!!" mod.
You need to look and see where they are getting their funding from. They may be paying for it through bonds, grants, etc that can only be used for very specific purposes, and not for the teacher's salaries, etc.
Trecares
We desperately need some more transparency in education and government, perhaps we could have something similar?
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
It's like everyone in this shithole is bass-ackwards, where all their achievements are mythical to no productive
conclusion other than waste time and money, and then to add insult to Apathy they join an unrelated religion
when they receive an award that says they are allowed to be successful. Then they retire into a luxurious
lifestyle accomodations, make donations to said religious association, attribute their struggle to success as
being their glory over race and culture, donate some more money, run for president in a foreign country that
you have more than enough money to feed and rebuild rather than commandeer, and it goes on and on.
Football players, basketball players, golfers, musicians; if ever I meet any of you, you better lube-up because the balls are going to be hammered up your ass. Bravo, lamefags.
4200 students!!!! That's twice the size of my hometown!
I get it now why they complained about budget cuts and having to fire all the teachers...so they can build this school!! I'm glad the lottery is doing what it's meant for!
CONSERVATARD SPOTTED.
Damn. I wish my school district(just south of LA) could afford new computers (as opposed to Pentium III machines/Celeron D machines) and air conditioning for the classrooms. THey have replaced some machine with Core 2 Quad HP Small Form Factor machines with 1280x1024 displays, which are at least decent. Our school was built in the 50s, one building added in 1993, and about half the structures on campus are portables... lol
....That amounts to $137,619.05 per student.
1) Can someone research for me how much a Masters from Harvard typically costs, in comparison?
2) Would anyone be willing to wager me that, after all this money is thrown at the problem, Johnny *still* won't be able to read?
Regards;
LOL.. So, the most significant way schools distinguish themselves from jail is the decor? This represents a shift in thinking; traditionally, the main difference was that you had to commit a crime to be sent to jail, but you got sent to school for merely existing. Homeschooling: "It's not just for scary religious people anymore."
Cool, it sounds like the administration offices are done, are the rows of portable buildings in place yet for the students and educators? --edfardos
. . . when they are in a deep economic crisis? Isn't California broke?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I think not. Why is this on slashdot?
I don't know about you, but when someone spends half a billion on a school building, I'd say that as long as we pay taxes here, that falls under Stuff That Matters.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
There's a reason for schools to look like thy do: It is a sturdy way to build things. When you have a building that is going to be frequented by a bunch of kids, who have no real investment or care in the well being of the building, it pays to build it to last. That means things like cinder-block walls (painted with heavy duty marine paint), tough, thin, carpet and so on. No it is not the peak of aesthetics but it does the job well. It takes abuse and hardly shows it. The high schools in my home town were like that and they aged very well. Sure it did have a "prison" look to it I guess but it held up to the students. You didn't have to repair holes in drywall all the time (hell I knocked a hole in my drywall and I try to be careful with that), you didn't have to repaint all the time, etc.
So it isn't just a matter of not spending a shit ton on a building, that could better go to teacher salaries and so on, but it is also a matter of longevity and maintenance. You want to put a building in place that you can use 30, 50, even 100 years from now all while being abused by students and you don't want to have to spend an arm and a leg doing it. That means some aesthetic compromises, but you'll get over it.
Hell I see that where I work (a university). My building is older, late 70s I think is when it was built. Main structure is brick, most floors are tough polyvinyl chloride, windows are a reasonable size and only in areas that matter and so on. It isn't the best looking building, but it holds up well. It can handle abuse (like having bigass servers moved around) well.
Next door is a new "dramatic" architecture building. Massive glass wall, exposed steel structure, etc. Ok cool... Except for all the problems. Cooling costs are astronomical, vandals brake the windows that make up the glass wall, the structure is rusting and so on. Has some ridiculous maintenance costs, many of which are simply being neglected.
Frankly, I'll take out "ugly" building. No it doesn't look as cool and the offices only have a normal window rather than a wall that is a window, but the damn thing holds up. It'll probably still be standing 30 years from now, not so sure about the building next door.
This reminds me of the disaster that took place in Kansas City a few years ago. It was summarized by the irreplaceable John Taylor Gatto:
Suddenly the district was awash in money for TV studios, swimming pools, planetariums, zoos, computers, squadrons of teachers and specialists. "They had as much money as any school district will ever get," said Gary Orfield, a Harvard investigator who directed a postmortem analysis, "It didn’t do very much." Orfield was wrong. The Windfall produced striking results:
Average daily attendance went down, the dropout rate went up, the black-white achievement gap remained stationary, and the district was as segregated after ten years of well-funded reform as it had been at the beginning. A former school board president whose children had been plaintiffs in the original suit leading to Judge Clark’s takeover said she had "truly believed if we gave teachers and administrators everything they said they needed, that would make a huge difference. I knew it would take time, but I did believe by five years into this program we would see dramatic results educationally." Who is the villain in this tale? Judge Clark is. He just doesn’t get it. The system isn’t broken. It works as intended, turning out incomplete people. No repair can fix it, nor is the education kids need in any catalogue to buy. As Kansas City proves, giving schools more money only encourages them to intensify the destructive operations they already perform.
You have to admit that existing schools are usually butt-ugly. If you associate learning with butt-ugly buildings, there's less incentive to go to places of learning. Human nature is just that way.
That being said, they could have spread the aesthetics budget around to other schools instead of blow it in one spot. That's their real sin in my opinion.
Table-ized A.I.
I've worked in k-12, in high-education outreach, and I currently work in a major university system. I know many methods that work in most Southern California schools and I know many that are destined for failure. The Show Boat School is a definite failure. Here's why:
1) Brain Drain: Every time a newer, better school is built, the school is touted as the future of education. Thus, all the best teachers from around the area want to teach there. This removes necessary institutional knowledge and role-models from other schools.
2) Poor Structural Design: Every Show Boat school I've seen has either turned out to look like a concrete prison to maximize the security of their students/property or is in an artistic building in an affluent neighborhood where prejudice is sufficient to keep "danger" at bay before it hits the school grounds. Either way the students are eventually seen as favorites, spoiled, and wimps.
3) Flawed Philosophy: You can't improve the general education and intelligence of the masses with exclusivity. Bill Gates proved that with his failed attempts to sponsor super-schools. If you want to improve the education of the general populace of the future, you need to focus on educating the *failures* and *at-risk* students more than the ones who are already succeeding. You have to educate from the bottom up. They call this a public school, but it will likely have preference for intra-district transfers, admission applications, and wait-lists.
4) The High Cost of Tech Upkeep: Computers will get dingy, dusty, and their components will be lifted. Peripherals will need to be constantly cleaned or constantly replaced. Software contracts lock schools into expensive exclusivity deals. Network admins, computer teachers, server room, router rooms... And then the constant upgrading... This is an insanely high cost for computers which are yet to show classroom gains sufficient to justify the cost. When the budget cuts hit (and they will...), say good-bye to the system admin and start storing the older computers.
At the end of the day, all the bells and whistles will lose their novelty, be forgotten and everything will settle into being "just a school" with "just regular teachers", "just a regular lunch-lady", "just a regular bell schedule", and nothing will change. It's money down the drain.
Transparency isn't the problem. All budget matters are open to anyone who wants to sit through a school board meeting. How many have you attended? Unfortunately, no one cares or speaks up until it's too late.
Education system should ideally roll-out Employers and not Employees.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
So wait, you're in the hole
"... the district faces a $640 million shortfall and some schools persistently rank among the nation's lowest performing."
and you want to build
"With an eye-popping price tag of $578 million, it will mark the inauguration of the nation's most expensive public school ever."
to what... teach your students what NOT to do when you're out of money?
I suppose that each Child will also receive One Laptop assigned for her/his school duties?
My sig is better than your sig.
What the story does not explain is that the money used to build the school was bond money that could only be used for buildings. It could not be used for teachers, books or any other educational material. I guess the author doe snot believe in fact finding. If the bond money was not used it would have gone into the state's slush fund and the schools would have lost it. Having a facility like this will attract private organizations who want to rent the schools on the weekends for cultural academies. Other school districts used this money to build new football and baseball stadiums that are profit making enterprises. The profits are being used for educational material and teacher's salaries. The biggest chunk of the budget was the land use studies (earthquakes, floods, smog) and the building resources to make it earthquake proof. The same building with all the glitz would have cost 1/4 as much non disaster prone states; eg. Nevada or Utah.
Counterexample: Stadium (Public) High School in Tacoma. It's been in use for
about a century now. You can walk to downtown Tacoma from there. Converted
from a high end hotel in the early 1900's. Movie go-ers know it
as Padua High (10 Things I Hate About You). Looks like a freaking castle because
it was modeled after a freaking castle.
Little carpet and only recently have things like a modern swimming pool been added
(when I was there we had the original 1910 model which lacked amenities like heat) but,
the building has engendered some respect, Between people who care about maintenance,
being built by people who were serious about it lasting awhile and a smaller than usual amount
of damage from people using it; including many generations of high schoolers, the place has
survived in good shape.
I would have had a much harder time caring about a school modeled on a prison even if it did
mean hiking up 6 stories from PE to calculus (no joke and, at the time, no elevators). If nothing
else it was kind of cool about learning about, say, Woodrow Wilson, looking into the stadium
where he gave a speech.
If you can have a little pride in the place (a decent building isn't necessary but can make it
easier), a lot else falls into place.
no need to have to travel to the middle school for some ladies and cannon fodder.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Frankly, I find the "dramatic" architecture buildings that look like Gehry-inspired crushed aluminum cans to be the ugly buildings.
Seriously, why does it look like they built a square mile of a concrete courtyard? Grass allergy sensitivity? Should help the thing bake like crazy in the LA sun.
I think it has just a little more to do with spending than incompetence. In the business of government, the more money passing through your hands, the better positioned you are to exploit that cash flow for personal gain. In this respect, they aren't incompetent at all, in fact the elite at the top of the pyramid know exactly what they are doing. That's why they're at the top, after all.
I certainly don't have any windows on my cubicle.
In Norway it is mandatory for all offices to have a natural source of light (e.g. windows) within a certain distance. If you work somewhere this is not possible, say a factory floor, there are strict rules about the quality of the light. Intensity, colors etc.
"he, who has quotes in his signature, is a douche" - unknown.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
i would be happy to pay teachers and school administrators 6 figure incomes
Using other people's money, right?
What you have to realize is that almost all school districts keep two sets of books. When they give costs per pupil, or talk about deficits forcing them to cut back programs, they are talking about money in their OPERATING budgets. These tell only part of the story. What usually goes unreported are the costs of things like this: the BUILDING funds, which are, in most districts, accounted for under a completely different budget and are NOT included in the "cost per pupil" figures that anyone ever sees. Thus this half a billion dollars will probably NOT raise Los Angeles' cost of educating pupils (on paper, at least) in the slightest. It's a totally hidden cost.
$578M for 4,200 students comes out to $137k per student. The article cites "land costs" as one of the reasons for the price tag. This isn't a fair comparison, but to put it into perspective for non-Californians, homes are really expensive here. A home for 4 in an average area can easily cost you $600k. If you want to live in an area with low crime then expect to pay over $1M. Anyway, 4 people for $600k is $150k per person which is comparable to the school.
California is in debt because of the public unions. Between unfunded promises of CALPERS and 100k+ salaries and pensions of thousands of public school administration workers.
California is in debt due to a bad economy, a huge illegal population that doesn't pay into the system, and MOSTLY DUE TO poor management resulting from the voters being unable to elect good managers over good campaigners.
California budgets are locked in law leaving very little left over that can be changed and to make changes you need a super majority higher than the constant filibusters that have kept the US Senate from doing much to fix this depression. Filibusters are a core source of budgetary problems for both California and the US Senate; and they disrespect the constitution by hacking the operating procedures - its a DoS attack plain and simple (except their program stops once a DoS attack is detected... our computers would work so much faster if we did that...)
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