L.A. Unified School District joins the wasteful hall of fame

Today marks the opening of the controversial $578 million Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex in Los Angeles, the most expensive public school in American history. The school has been a lightning rod for controversy, with many of the more profligate features in the complex standing in stark contrast to the city and state's otherwise precarious budget situation.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Allysia Finley summarizes some of the more offensive aspects of the project.

The school boasts an auditorium whose starry ceiling and garish entrance are modeled after the old Cocoanut Grove nightclub and a library whose round, vaulted ceilings and cavernous center resemble the ballroom where Kennedy made his last speech. It also includes the original Cocoanut Grove canopy around which the rest of the school was built. "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...

Talking benches—$54,000—play a three-hour audio of the site's history. Murals and other public art cost $1.3 million. A minipark facing a bustling Wilshire Boulevard? $4.9 million.

When Ms. Finley asked Mr. Rubin if he thought many of these features--such as the gigantic marble slab engraved with quotations from Cesar Chavez, Maya Angelou, and Ted Kennedy--were worth the cost, he responded, ""Did we have to do that? Hell no. But there's no accounting for taste."

 

With all due respect to Mr. Rubin, when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars, there sure as hell is. These expenditures might be a mere footnote if they existed in a different context, but the current economic environment makes them glaring. In discussing the opening of the school, the Los Angeles Times notes that:

The campus, which comprises six independent schools, will unlock its doors to about 3,700 students as a maelstrom of issues buffets the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest school system. The school's delayed Sept. 13 opening is the consequence of budget cuts that shortened the school year, while classes here and in other school systems will be larger because of teacher layoffs.

The school district is, in fact, running a $640 million deficit and has had to lay off a total of 3,000 teachers over the last two years. The contradictions here should be clear. To spend millions on art and parks that serve little or no educational purpose--while simultaneously laying off teachers and shortening the school year--represents the epitome of self-defeating behavior. With decisions like this, it is no small wonder that the district's graduation rates and college matriculation rates are among the lowest in the country--reportedly around 50% and 11%, respectively.

Controversies like this are, however, hardly unique to Los Angeles. In Massachusetts, debate continues to rage regarding the recently-opened Newton North High School ($197 million, nearly 100% above its original budget) and a $159 million high school project in neighboring Wellesley (my alma mater). In response to these projects, Massachusetts state treasurer Timothy Cahill issued a stern warning.

Cahill...said that school communities should not be making decisions for a community. He argued that even the wealthiest towns have residents who cannot afford the tax increases needed to fund such projects...

Cahill said the tax override that Newton voters rejected [in May 2008] was a case in point. The $12 million override was not related to the costs of the new school, which jumped $56 million in just over a year. Still, he said, the rejection was a sign of voter frustration with the city's fiscal management.

Now, the city could face the prospect of laying off teachers.

"The teachers are far more important than bricks and mortar," Cahill said.

In fairness to Wellesley, with enrollment nearly doubling over the past 10 years due to a conflation of factors, something needed to be done to the original 1938 building, which was stressed beyond capacity. Projects which expanded the original structure were considered, but proved to be more expensive and more time-consuming than a new structure--and much more disruptive to the students during the process. Furthermore, WHS is consistently rated among the best public high schools in America, and has earned the benefit of the doubt from me, a distinction which the Los Angeles Unified School District certainly has not.

This is ultimately part of a greater gripe of mine against many government responses to crises. Faced with low graduation rates and public pressure, Los Angeles simply threw money at the problem, rather than addressing the root causes. Not only will it not work, but it actually proved to be self-defeating, wasting money that could have otherwise been spent retaining the teachers that it was forced to lay off.

Just as Cash for Clunkers didn't save the car market (this August's sales rate represented the weakest August since 1983, further indicating that the demand pull-forward was a short-lived boon to the industry), and the Obama tax credits did not save the housing market (sales rates for both new and existing homes experienced a similarly devastating snap-back after the credits expired), the RFK school complex will not save Los Angeles' graduation rates or send more students to college (to be saddled with non-forgiveable loan debt). It will simply leave Los Angeles in an ever more precarious financial situation, forcing it to make difficult decisions that never would have had to be made absent this wasteful spending.

Bad government policies are worse than no government policies; they not only do not solve problems, they also create new problems in their wake. When Los Angeles finds itself in 2020 wondering why graduation rates are still languishing and their budget simply can't be balanced, they will have to look no farther than the inspirational marble slab at the RFK school complex. Hopefully, it will provide some helpful words of wisdom.

[Wall Street Journal]
[Los Angeles Times]
[Boston Globe]