School Choice Week

For more information about school choice week please follow this link:

https://schoolchoiceweek.com/

The most expensive school ever constructed

A friend of ours sent me the following article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703959704575454013855538920.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

The following paragraphs highlight the orgy of spending involved in this Los Angeles public school project:

At $578 million—or about $140,000 per student—the 24-acre Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex in mid-Wilshire is the most expensive school ever constructed in U.S. history. To put the price in context, this city's Staples sports and entertainment center cost $375 million. To put it in a more important context, the school district is currently running a $640 million deficit and has had to lay off 3,000 teachers in the last two years. It also has one of the lowest graduation rates in the country and some of the worst test scores.

"It wasn't cheap, but it was saved," says Thomas Rubin, a consultant for the district's bond oversight committee, which oversees the $20 billion of bonds that taxpayers approved for school construction in recent years.  I asked Mr. Rubin whether some of the school's grandiose features—like florid murals of Robert F. Kennedy—were worth the cost. "Did we have to do that? Hell no. But there's no accounting for taste," he responded.

The Kennedy complex is Exhibit A in the district's profligate 131-school building binge. Exhibit B is the district's Visual and Performing Arts High School, which was originally budgeted at $70 million but was later upgraded into a sci-fi architectural masterpiece that cost $232 million.


Even more striking is Exhibit C, the Edward Roybal Learning Center in the Westlake area, which was budgeted at $110 million until costs skyrocketed midway through construction when contractors discovered underground methane gas and a fault line. Eventual cost: $377 million.

If you find this unaccountable spending outrageous you may ask yourself how this can occur. The answer is in this paragraph from the above article:

Expect more such over-the-top and inefficient building projects in the future. Los Angeles voters have approved over $20 billion of bonds since 1997 and state voters have chipped in another $4.4 billion of matching funds. Roughly a third of the cost of the Kennedy complex will be shouldered by state taxpayers.

This is the recipe that government has found so effective. Place a referendum on a ballot that asks voters to approve more government spending.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

Just say no to government spending.

The 7% soultion

The following article is another example of how government funding can corrupt society. The Chicago Public Schools are under constant condemnation for their high dropout rate and poor student test scores. The solution chosen by CPS officials is to falsify the attendance records:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-0627edit1jun27,0,478588.story

These 2 paragraphs explain the motivation for committing fraud:

• There's plenty of motivation to cook the attendance books. Attendance determines the amount of state and federal money schools receive: Depressed attendance caused by dropouts and truants costs CPS as much as $20 million a year in state funding. Attendance determines staffing levels too. As enrollment dips, jobs are threatened.
• This type of low-grade obfuscation may keep extra dollars flowing to Bowen, but it does nothing to stem the school's tide of underachievement. Only 7 percent of Bowen Environmental students passed the state assessment tests in 2008.

You read that correctly, only 7 percent of this school’s students passed the assessment tests. And keep in mind that the State’s assessment tests are designed to pass the greatest number of students as possible.

It is incredible that a service provider can stay in business with a 93% failure rate. Could you imagine a hospital staying in business if 93% of its patients died? Would you hire an attorney who has a record of 93% of clients being convicted? What about an accountant who had 93% of his clients audited? How about dining at a restaurant where 93% of customers get food poisoning?

For more information about public education and school choice see the following website:

http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/Welcome.do

At that point, you don't have a choice

Parents of students in one Chicago Public School have made a startling discovery:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-gold-coast-school-cabrinimay25,0,5726163.story

The parents live in a very upscale neighborhood and send their kids to the local elementary school, which does not have a current desegregation plan.  This means that their kids do not get bussed to a different neighborhood and the kids from other neighborhoods do not get bussed in.  Everyone has been happy until now when the school will be temporarily closed for remodeling.  Now the students will be bused to a school in a neighborhood with at very different social culture.

This quote from one parent is a classic:

"At that point, you don't have a choice."

No choice in education is the foundation of the public school system.  If parents had a choice they would send their kids to the best schools available. This would force the local school bureaucrats and teachers unions to compete.

Competition is never acceptable to government employees and labor unions.

For more on School Choice follow this link:

http://www.friedmanfoundation.org