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August 23, 2010
Broke City in Broke State Blows $578 Million on Nation's Costliest School
Posted by Dave Blount at August 23, 2010 12:48 PM
By now everyone knows that California is going bankrupt — everyone, that is, except the profligate moonbats running the place:
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.
Features include fine art murals, a manicured 10-acre park, a state of the art swimming pool, a dance studio with cushioned maple floors, a restaurant-quality pizza oven, et cetera, ad nauseam. Also:
[T]he district paid another $15 million preserving historic features, including a wall of the famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub and turning the Paul Williams-designed coffee shop into a faculty lounge.
This obscene monument to overindulgence and fiscal recklessness isn't an anomaly.
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.
The pricey schools have come during a sensitive period for the nation's second-largest school system: Nearly 3,000 teachers have been laid off over the past two years, the academic year and programs have been slashed. The district also faces a $640 million shortfall and some schools persistently rank among the nation's lowest performing.
Yet even now some liberals cling to the notion that spending more improves education.
Maybe Golden State bureauweenies know something we don't — such as who will pick up the tab for this lunacy. We now live in a country where people who live within their means are forced to subsidize the lifestyles of those who don't. Inevitably, responsible states like Texas will have to pay California's bills. This will happen when a massive bailout is imposed to keep the frivolous spending going, while greedy educrats bleat about teachers losing their jobs.
On a tip from G. Fox.
