LOS ANGELES – 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.
If I lived in California…I think I would just leave.
“If I lived in California…I think I would just leave.”
This kind of wasteful brain dead extravagance reminds me of the excesses of Rome at its worst.
TN doesn’t blow anything like that kind of money but our scores are a heck of a lot better and taxes are a heck of lot lower.
The only thing wrong with California is the people running it and the people who live there who have made some massively, bodaciously, stupendously bad choices and I for one don’t want to waste my tax dollars trying to bail them out.
Barrack Obama (as ‘Presidentman’): Quick, Boy Wonder, to the Bailout-mobile!
Are you guys just channeling the “DrudgeReport” now? Honestly I come here to get something different other than more of the echo chamber.
Who say’s the Drudge report didn’t get this from us?
I would be proud to have my child become dumber at such a campus.
And the left/right cult wonders why our state is bankrupt…
How can anyone find fault? It’s for the children and ah.. maybe a few contractors.
i have no idea why the school was built so extravagantly, but my first guess is that somebody on the school board had a buddy in the construction industry that was a long time between contracts. The contractors out West got some gold plated contracts, I’m sure…
The linked article is a bit confusing. Goes on and on about the cost of land and building supplies and so forth but if this is a renovated Hotel those issues should be irrelevant.
It should also be noted that the cost of the building is “off budget/taxes” so to speak as funded by a bond issue years ago. Contra–the upkeep of the building is tax based.
Does that much money need to be spent on a building to teach our kiddies? No. Were/are there other interests being served besides education? Looks Like.
An entire State. A State the Size of California. Going Bankrupt. I think we’ll see it. Gnashing of teeth to follow.
A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money.
You know, I always thought that California voters would not be quite as gullible if these ballot measures were more accurately termed “borrowing money with 100% interest” instead of “selling a bond”.
Nah. Who am I fooling. They would still be just as gullible.
Damn… this is going to be used FOREVER as “proof” that we are “throwing money at schools.”
Nevermind that most kids in my schools don’t even have their own textbooks — the conservatives are going to keep claiming that we are “throwing money at schools.”
I drove by the old hotel once, very centrally located in Los Angeles, but empty. Seems that after Bobby K got shot there nobody wanted to stay.
The moron voters of CA, approved this funding in a ballot. Legally the money can’t be used for anything besides the school. There is only one group of people at fault, the residents of this CA area.
It sure is fun to sling mud at Obama and big government. God forbid voters have actual responsibilities to their communities, it’s just so much easier to blame it on everyone but yourself.
I really wasnt going to say anything..
K-12?
“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.”
Did the Kennedy’s GIVE any money?? DO THEY EVEN CARE?
RFK, is so OUT of time line to the OCCURRENCES of the FAMILY.
“both storied and infamous history as the former Ambassador Hotel, where the Democratic presidential contender was assassinated in 1968″
I could have taken that amount of money and REBUILT 4-10 high schools in oregon.
#13 true dat. I would need to study the origin and purpose of this but it sure sounds like a money pit that even Haliburton would salivate over.
They say the chalk is made of gold.
If the state of California wanted to promote architectural masturbation, it would have been cheaper to buy the guy a bottle of KY.
@#11 “Damn… this is going to be used FOREVER as “proof” that we are “throwing money at schools.” ” – fact that you don’t like this proof has nothing to do with the clear-as-a-day fact that if Govt. is in charge money WILL be thrown at the schools wastefully.
“Nevermind that most kids in my schools don’t even have their own textbooks — the conservatives are going to keep claiming that we are “throwing money at schools.” ” – And they’ll have factual right to claim so. You don’t like the facts – change them, don’t hide them. Fight to eliminate Federal Department of Education (as well as seize State level fund controls to local level) and related taxes so that you have more to give locally to your schools in need and CONTROL what is spent and how. Govt. bureaucracy
is who is stealing your school money, not Conservatives.
Why should RFK’s assassination site become a school in the first place?
Why did they turn the school into an assassination memorial?
#11 You kind of made a point you are unaware of…the waste was the building, and the kids could have had so much more if a simple school was built elsewhere.
And, of course, all illegal Mexican kids are going to be going there, no doubt.
I am moving to another state in two years. California is fucked up.
Any old building and selected teachers, funded with the interest on that money would attract kids who want to learn would kill to get in.