Expensive schools value luxury instead of education
Published: Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Updated: Wednesday, September 15, 2010 10:09
Barbie and Ken did nothing to earn their dream house.
Likewise, the low-performing Los Angeles Unified School District did not deserve to build the most expensive public school complex in the country.
“My elementary school looked like a jail and I turned out fine,” said senior health and wellness student Katherine Mullen. “It doesn’t matter about the building, it’s the teachers in it.”
The Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, which cost $578 million to construct, opened on Monday. Talking benches, a state-of-the-art swimming pool, a 10-acre park and faculty dining rooms are only some of the campus’s luxurious amenities.
“That’s just mind-boggling. Talking benches? You just don’t need talking benches,” said Pat O’Cain, UNC Asheville honors program assistant. “That just doesn’t make sense to me as an educational enhancement.”
During the past two years, the district laid off 3,000 teachers. It seems administrators consider the talking benches, which recount the history of the campus when one sits on them, adequate substitutes for actual teachers.
According to the California Department of Education, a $640 million deficit waits to confront LAUSD. Gov. Arnold