There really isn't anything else I can say about this: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100822/ap_on_re_us/us_taj_mahal_schools
You know, where I grew up, all the schools in the county were alike- 1 story, square buildings. When a new school was built, it looked like all the others. I think many school systems should look into that. I know our school district just passed a $523 million bond to build 2 new schools, but mostly to build a state-of-the-art, international meet-quality outdoor pool. I have a swimmer, who will quite possibly swim in that pool, but I voted against it. It's excessive, and it's raising my property taxes over $100 a year.
What a waste! I'd rather see the money go to pay the good teachers and smaller class sizes than on that useless stuff. I thought schools were hurting right now? One of our local districts built a new, fancy school Lots of wasted head space and good looks, but totally impractical. Now they don't have enough class space or enough parking with the pathetically designed parking lot. Plain and simple makes the most sense as far as long term usage.
I agree with Blizzard. They should be putting that money towards educating the children. They have a 50% drop out rate. According to the article, "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." Something is wrong with this picture. They have the money to build a $578 million building, while teachers are being laid off. This is crazy.
Wooooooooooow. $578m could pay for 10,000 years of teaching at $60k a year. What the heck. 1000 extra teachers for ten years and instead they build a fancy pants school that half the students will only see half of before they drop out. -sigh- Stupid stupid stupid. No wonder parents aren't fooled.
Especially California, right now there is a huge black hole where educational funding should be, and they build this? $400M of it could have hired more teachers and provided better books, with $187M to build the school. I tell ya, when I am Sect. of Education . . .
