HEADLINES

Sunday, August 22, 2010

At $578 million, Los Angeles unveils the costliest school in the country

image The Los Angeles Unified School District is unveiling the costliest school in the United States. It's the Robert F. Kennedy Community School system.

The price tag is consistent with the lifestyle of the rich and famous who populate the area:  A cool $578 million.  Yes, Five hundred, seventy eight million dollars.  For a school. 

In California, the next Greece.

This is the Los Angeles United School District, that routinely produces a 50% dropout rate and test scores with proficiency ratings approaching one-third of students.  That means for every three students taking standardized tests, only one shows proficiency in the subject matter. 

Apparently, the leaders of the LAUSD are bad at math.


LOS ANGELES (AP) — 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.


What's scary about this is that the Los Angeles Unified School District is proud of this.

I'm all for students going to school in nice, clean, well-constructed facilities that foster an atmosphere of comfort and learning.  But at $578 million, the cost-per-student is $137,619.05.  And that's just for construction.

But this is not the first of the LAUSD's Taj Mahal projects.  This is just the crown jewel:


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 L.A. 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.


For those of us who learned math in the brick and mortar schools of yesteryear, that means the LAUSD has spent no less than $1.187 billion on shiny new schools that would make Al Gore blush at their opulence and splendor. 

Do you think that the people of California are getting their money's worth?  Do you think that student test scores and dropout rates warrant spending this kind of money on the setting, rather than the readin, ritin' and rithmetic?

Gimme some feedback in the comments.







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Thanks Barack… Stimulus Jobs Cost Taxpayers $195,000 Each

What a deal!
Not only was the Obama-Pelosi Trillion dollar stimulus a complete failure by every objective measurement, but each job it created cost taxpayers $195,000.

Hat Tip BB for the graph

KTVZ reported:

A Government Accountability Office report released Thursday shows that the Department of Energy has spent more than $1.9 billion in stimulus funds to create 10,018 jobs through May, an average of $194,213 spent per full-time job created.

"As a small business owner for nearly 22 years, I'm shocked that these jobs cost taxpayers nearly $195,000 each," U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said. "Taxpayers deserve more for their investment. This is more evidence that the private sector is far more capable than the federal government at creating the long-term jobs required for a sustainable economic recovery."

"It looks like the Department of Energy got in over its head when it was handed $6 billion in stimulus money to create jobs by accelerating environmental cleanup work. This report says that DOE managed its timetables well enough, but it also indicates that so far, the jobs that DOE created cost $194,213 each," said U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.








Anti-Mosque Protesters at Ground Zero Chant: “Obama’s Gotta Go!” (Video)

There was a protest today at Ground Zero against the proposed victory mosque.
Protesters chanted, "Obama's gotta go!"

The AP reported on the protest and counter-protest:

Opponents of the $100 million project two blocks from the World Trade Center site appeared to outnumber supporters. Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" blared over loudspeakers as mosque opponents chanted, "No mosque, no way!"

Signs hoisted by dozens of protesters standing behind police barricades read "SHARIA" – using dripping, blood-red letters to describe Islam's Shariah law, which governs the behavior of Muslims.

Steve Ayling, a 40-year-old Brooklyn plumber who carried his sign to a dry spot by an office building, said the people behind the mosque project are "the same people who took down the twin towers."

Opponents demand that the mosque be moved farther from the site where more than 2,700 people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001. "They should put it in the Middle East," Ayling said.

On a nearby sidewalk, police chased away a group that unfurled a banner with images of beating, stoning and other torture they said was committed by those who followed Islamic law.

A mannequin wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional Arab headdress, was mounted on one of two mock missiles that were part of an anti-mosque installation. One missile was inscribed with the words: "Again? Freedom Targeted by Religion"; the other with "Obama: With a middle name Hussein. We understand. Bloomberg: What is your excuse?"








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