Building an Expensive Facade
$578 million dollars.
Let’s leave this high dollar figure for just a minute.
The first district I worked, for, Albuquerque Public Schools, has a budget of $1.2 billion for 2010-2011. The district services nearly 90,000 students
The last district I worked for, Gilbert Public Schools, had a budget in 2009-2010 of around $450 million dollars. That district has around 39,000 students.
In Los Angeles, the LA Unified School District decided to throw $578 million into one building. That’s right. ONE building, a K-12 community school designed to house 4,200 students.
Read about it, but please do not punch your computer screens or chuck your Blackberries and iPhones in disgust: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100822/ap_on_re_us/us_taj_mahal_schools
Oh, throw in that they spent $377 million and $239 million for schools that opened in 2008 and 2009. Even those who are somewhat math challenged will realize that LA spent $1.2 billion on three…that’s right three, 3, tres buildings.
Hold on, it gets better: LA is expecting a $280 to $500 million-shortfall next year (depends on who is asked) and cut 4,500 additional teachers.
“It’s a different funding source,” is the common cry from administrators and school boards when trying to justify these beasts of economical burden.
Tell that to the teachers in California who have been laid off and yet get to see these three schools filled with students but little change in education. How nice to have cathedrals for schools yet have overcrowded classrooms.
The LA district blamed the high costs “skyrocketing material and land prices, rigorous seismic codes and unionized labor”, but catch these nuances: According to the story, the project “grew to encompass a dance studio with cushioned maple floors, a modern kitchen with a restaurant-quality pizza oven, a 10-acre park and teacher planning rooms between classrooms”.
Excuse me?
Even more disturbing and possibly a direct side effect of journalism cuts in recent years: How in the world did these schools get built in the first place? As a couple people asked me on my Facebook page where I initially registered my disgust, where was the media when this school was placed on someone’s agenda and our tax burden?
A story on the ground breaking of the school in November of 2006 barely touched on the cost of the school, which at that time was “only” $300 million.
Here is a paragraph from that story: ”Guests at Monday’s ceremony, however, were not talking about money. It was a day of celebration and photo ops replete with golden shovels for tossing dirt. Speakers, including Councilmen Herb Wesson and Jose Huizar, repeatedly praised recently departed Supt. Roy Romer and school board members for shepherding the project forward despite preservation groups who fought to save the historic hotel”
(http://articles.latimes.com/2006/nov/21/local/me-kennedy21/2).
By the way, Perry High School, a high school that is part of the Chandler Unified School District in Arizona, was opened in 2007 at a cost “only” $50 million to build and can hold at least half the number of students the “taj mahal” in LA will house. Volcano Vista, which opened in Albuquerque also in 2007, ran $100 million.
Construction costs may be a valid argument, but how much are we trying to build something fancy to hide the facade of a crumbling educational system? Also, should not what is taking place inside be much more valuable than what is exhibited on the outside?