California's latest spending outrage

It’s great to see that California, known for their uncontrollable government spending and large deficit, has the money to spend $578 million on a school just a year after they asked the government to bail them out. The school is the costliest in the nation and will be located in Los Angeles.

The school is located at the famous Ambassador Hotel, where presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. Obviously, administrators were looking for a posh palace for students that the entire community can marvel at. The school is capable of holding roughly 4,200 students, grades K-12.

I’m not quite sure what administrators are trying to do here. It seems as though they believe that by having state-of-the-art buildings that students will want to come to school and get an education. However, it seems like they have fallen victim to a superficial culture that prizes appearance over substance.

Many schools in the area have up to, and over, a 50 percent dropout rate. Not to mention, the area is home to a large illegal immigrant community — perhaps the largest in the nation. I’m not saying we shouldn’t spend money on our children. Why so much on the aesthetics of a building? We should be retraining our teachers instead.

Where does good ol' commonsense come in? It’s blatantly shameful that more effort isn’t being put into the quality of education our children receive. Clearly the California teachers' union has the state in a vice grip.

Apparently it's not that No Child Should Be Left Behind — it's that No Child Should Be Left Behind in a dilapidated school building.

---