Sunday, August 22, 2010

Pricey Schools

We were getting better educational results before swimming pools and murals... there are far too few in the education establishment who have learned that lesson. 

Next month’s opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will be auspicious for a reason other than its both storied and infamous history as the former Ambassador Hotel, where the Democratic presidential contender was assassinated in 1968. 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.

“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.”

Not everyone is similarly enthusiastic.

“New buildings are nice, but when they’re run by the same people who’ve given us a 50 percent dropout rate, they’re a big waste of taxpayer money,” said Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution who sits on the California Board of Education. “Parents aren’t fooled.”

At RFK, the features include fine art murals and a marble memorial depicting the complex’s namesake, a manicured public park, a state-of-the-art swimming pool and preservation of pieces of the original hotel.

Partly by circumstance and partly by design, the Los Angeles Unified School District has emerged as the mogul of Taj Mahals.

The RFK complex follows on the heels of two other LA schools among the nation’s costliest — the $377 million Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, which opened in 2008, and the $232 million Visual and Performing Arts High School that debuted in 2009.

(3) Comments
Posted by Owen at 2136 hrs
Politics + Politics - General

  1. Blame continuing education requirements for teachers, strangely enough.

    Teachers are required to do continuing ed to keep certified. When you do that, you might as well work towards a master’s or Ph.D. so you can bump your pay, too. But the Ph.D. requires “original research” (the definition of which can be stretched pretty far).

    So you have a whole bunch of “new ideas” coming into teaching (the New Math, etc), and being distributed out to educators through their continuing education requirements. And the educators are never judged on the quality of the product they produce.

    We’d be better served if there were more consequences for willy-nilly adopting the latest trends, but even the weak feedback of NCLB terrifies teachers unions.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2010 at 0847 hrs


  2. I am confident that test scores in this school will be the best in the nation.  After all, it is all about the money.

    Posted by Fred on August 23, 2010 at 0926 hrs


  3. I tend to be amazed at the opulence of the performing arts centers found in many newer high schools.  These typically contain features and amenities that were not found in many top-tier professional performing arts centers a few decades ago.

    But, perhaps it’s not surprising to find this in a culture that endlessly focueses on inputs with nary a thought as to how these costly inputs might actually improve measurable outcomes.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2010 at 1051 hrs


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