TruthNews Commentary, August 24, 2010

The most expensive public high school in U.S. history will open next month in Los Angeles. Construction of the deluxe Robert F. Kennedy Community School has cost $578 million. To help offset the expensive construction, the LA Unified School District has laid off nearly 3,000 teachers over the past two years. In addition, the academic year has been shortened and programs have been slashed. The district also faces a $640 million shortfall, and some schools persistently rank among the nation's lowest performing.

You would think that a $578 million school could handle at least a hundred thousand students. In fact, I did a quick calculation to see how many students this could handle. Office space in Los Angeles currently leases for $2.60 per square foot. If you amortize that over thirty years, it comes out to $78 per square foot. If you assign each person a generous 25 square feet, that comes out to $1,950 per person. If you double the square feet per person to account for lunchrooms and cafeterias, the cost would be $3900 per person. So a $578 million building should be able to handle 148,000 people. In the LA Unified School District, around 89 percent of the people are students, so a $578 million school should be able to handle around 132,000 students, plus 16,000 teachers, cooks, janitors, and security guards. This would account for nearly a fifth of the total enrollment in the entire school district.¹

But calculations based on the cost of LA office space are totally meaningless. The Robert F. Kennedy Community School will house only 4,200 students.

The Kennedy Community School has been ridiculed across the country as the most extravagant example of "Taj Mahal" schools, $100 million campuses boasting deluxe amenities. The LA Unified School District spent more money on this single school than China spent on the huge stadium built for the 2008 Olympic Games in Peking. The $578 million price tag exceeds the gross domestic product of thirteen countries.

Joe Agron, editor-in-chief of American School & University, was quoted as defending the colossal waste of taxpayer money. "There's no more of the old, windowless cinderblock schools of the '70s where kids felt, 'Oh, back to jail. Districts want a showpiece for the community, a really impressive environment for learning."

But parents and taxpayers have a different view. "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."

The LA Unified School District has a reputation for extremely crowded schools, high drop-out and expulsion rates, low academic performance, poor maintenance, and incompetent administration. In 2007, the district's dropout rate was 26 percent. But that was three years ago. The dropout rate now approaches 35 percent.

But in LA, school construction must ignore the realities of student instruction. At the Robert Kennedy School, the features include fine art murals and a marble memorial depicting the complex's namesake, a manicured public park, and a state-of-the-art swimming pool. According to the LA Unified Schools superintendent, the faculty dining room is "better than most restaurants." The school is built on the site of the Ambassador Hotel, where Democratic presidential contender Robert Kennedy was assassinated by Palestinian terrorist Sirhan Sirhan on June 5, 1968. So naturally, money had to be spent on "talking benches" commemorating the site's history.

The new Kennedy School is only the latest expensive building folly perpetrated by the Los Angeles Unified School District. LA's $377 million Edward R. Roybal Learning Center opened in 2008, and the $232 million Visual and Performing Arts High School opened in 2009.

Los Angeles is not alone, however, in squandering taxpayer money on extravagant schools. Some of the most expensive schools in the nation are found in low-performing districts. New York City built a $235 million campus. New Brunswick, N.J., opened a $185 million high school in January.

Nationwide, dozens of schools have surpassed $100 million with amenities including atriums and food courts. Only some of the boondoggles have had political fallout.

After a firestorm over the $197.5 million Newton North High School in Newton, Massachusetts, Mayor David Cohen chose not to seek re-election and state Treasurer Timothy Cahill reined in school construction spending. Now to get state funds for a new school, districts must choose among three designs costing $49 million to $64 million. "We had to bring some sense to this process," Cahill said.

But Los Angeles goes merrily on its way, squandering taxpayer money on unneeded buildings while laying off teachers and cutting programs.

¹ABC News reported that the cost of the school "works out to about $250,000 per pupil." But that's because the ABC reporters attended expensive under-performing schools that didn't know how to teach math. The actual cost per student is $137,619. That's still over thirty times more expensive than leasing an equivalent amount of office space.