The Rusted Musket

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LA Mega Schools: Are they worth it?

Posted by Tony On August - 24 - 2010

Was looking at headlines on DrudgeReport.com and came across a eye catching headline: “LA unveils $578M school, costliest in the nation
I couldn’t resist clicking the link and reading the article because skyrocketing school costs is a interest of mine.

The gist of it is that LA just finished building a 4,200 student k-12 school on the site of a historic hotel. It cost $578M and was designed to create a more creative artistic environment… But lets go back to the cost… $578M…. That is enough money to build several highrise condos, or pay down some of the State debt, or build 10 regular schools… Instead the money is spent on one building, a true example of the excessive spending that our education system does.

No matter how buttered up a building is its not going to get a better graduating rate out of students, not until there is some accountability among school staff and performance based metrics. Quit laying off young teachers just because they haven’t been there for long, lay off or fire the bad teachers. California with their massive debt can’t afford to be building schools like this and they certainly can’t afford mediocre performance among their education staff.

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