Reflections

California Builds ‘Taj Mahal’ For Its Students While Teaching Staff Is Cut

Posted by on Aug 31, 2010 | 9 Comments

The State of California continues to lose its way and is living in a fool’s paradise on ways it is spending its money. The latest fiasco involves a new school which had been built in Los Angeles at a cost of $585 million to house 4,200 students.  Some are calling the new school a ‘Taj Mahal’ because of its outrageous price and the luxurious interior. In one article it also stated that the new building cost $130,000 for each student seat. In the article it also states that:

“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.

The pricey schools have come during a sensitive period for the nation’s second-largest school system: Nearly 3,000 teachers have been laid off over the past two years, the academic year and programs have been slashed. The district also faces a $640 million shortfall and some schools persistently rank among the nation’s lowest performing.

Now we know why that the California educational system ranks in 49th place out of 50. These people are short of cash so they build a huge school instead of getting better teachers that would improve education. How many building do you know that will actually improve students’ test scores?

Comments welcome.

Source – Yahoo News

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/theoracle/ the oracle

    The expense is not what I’d complain about, for if the quality of education were to go up, it would all be worthwhile.

    As I have previously ranted in my own area, the problems, as I see them, are not the dollars spent on the school edifice, but the teachers and the teachers’ union are running the poorly scheduled show.

    I won’t rehash it all here, as it will no doubt irk the teachers looking in, but if there were more control of the teachers, the children in the classrooms would be much better served.

    (father of 2 children in the Ca. school system)

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Hi Marc,
      Our grandson is entering the 6th grade here in MO. His teacher actually
      went to our daughters home to meet with her and her son to discuss what
      will be expected of him. :-)

  • http://www.justenrobertson.com Justen Robertson

    Buying more teachers is not the answer any more than buying fancy prisons for children is. Paying teachers more, or having more of them, does not confront the basic problem that the whole model of education is ass-backwards (unless you’re trying to produce broken, complacent, barely literate factory workers for 19th century industrialists – then it’s perfect). If you want to produce creative, intelligent, self-reliant, entrepreneurial adults by *intent* rather than by *accident*, shut down the schools, fire the teachers, burn the textbooks and destroy the shackles placed on their minds.

    http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Schooling/dp/086571519X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283354183&sr=1-1

    Oh, but if you did want to keep on producing mindless drones, you might as well make them comfortable – so keep up with the Taj Mahals (the faster the whole system goes broke the faster alternatives will have a chance to thrive, after all).

  • http://www.justenrobertson.com Justen Robertson

    Oh, as an aside, why would you want to improve test scores? Test scores are irrelevant in measuring anything except the test taker’s ability to take tests – they don’t accurately measure retention of knowledge, let alone actual important metrics like ability, interest, or practical applicability of the information.

    Do you expect these kids to wake up ten years from now into a world where everybody’s job is to fill in bubbles in a predetermined pattern on a scantron sheet, to the satisfaction of some idiot politician whose only demonstrable talents are wasting money and lying? I don’t see that happening, personally. I am willing to bet that in another decade or two the ability to patiently repeat simple tasks for hours on end will be a role filled almost entirely by machines. If we stick to the political plan of education we’ll have a whole generation of graduating students who are as utterly worthless and jobless as their parents. Or rather you’ll have. I don’t intend to participate, so I won’t claim ownership of the outcome.

  • Alex

    When looking at the money put out for these new school buildings you have to remember that the head of the school board gets his name and face placed in a prominent place in the school. The school building becomes a monument to him/her and the school board. That’s how California school boards work.

    One thing I could never understand how it is that teaching staff gets cut but extremely over-paid administrators still have jobs. In fact, often during times of fiscal crisis new administrators are added on. It is a known fact of business that administrators and management staff is functional less than 50% of the time. Consequently, schools could lose at least half of their administrators and still function quite nicely. Administrator’s pay takes up no less than 10% of the budget. That may not sound like much but when you consider that one administrator’s salary equals 2 to 3 teachers it becomes more interesting. The fact is most of the administrator’s work is done by their secretaries. We need good teachers. We don’t need do-nothing administrators who have job security when money is tight.

  • http://askaaronlee.com Aaron Lee

    Guess that means no poking on first dates too. Darn!

    • http://chris.pirillo.com/ Chris Pirillo

      All bets are off with you, dude. :)

  • http://punditcommentator.blogspot.com Pundit Commentator

    This is why, when I did have a Facebook account, I refused to ever acknowledge my personal life on it.

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