Reply to Ballou's New $120 Million Building--With an 8 Lane POOL!

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Reply to "Ballou's New $120 Million Building--With an 8 Lane POOL!"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Now what if that $150K for each student (the article said about 800 students) were simultaneously invested in the community's children, put towards the necessary prerequisites to get those students to proficiency in HS subject matter (reading AND writing AND math AND science AND language) and regular attendance.  Then it could be a HS that is world class.  It will only end up being a world class building without the student body to go with it.  DCPS's approach "if you build it, they will come/learn/succeed" doesn't seem to make sense.[/quote]

Why, then we'd have a single generation of kids who registered a minor uptick in performance (possibly). Instead, we're investing in a decent learning facility for generations of kids.  Sorry, but while having a decent school facility may not be sufficient for student success, it sure as Hell is necessary. To say we should spend capital improvement money on test prep (or whatever the Hell "necessary prerequisites to get those students to proficiency in HS subject matter") is ridiculously short-sighted.[/quote]

PP you quoted here.  No, it wouldn't be test prep for a select group of students to see a minor uptick.  It would be a comprehensive approach for a generation of students in an under-served area.  A gorgeous HS building is shortsighted in and of itself without the academic piece to go with it.  In other words, why build a beautful pool if the students can't swim (it's a metaphor - I really don't care about the pool or not pool).[/quote]

The cost of renovating Ballou is so high because we've spent the last 30 years letting it fall into a miserable state of disrepair. I'd argue that you have to maintain your facilities. In fact, it's cheaper to actually maintain them than rebuild them every 30 years or so, so I think there's a bit of a false choice here.

As far as "the academic piece" that will be a "comprehensive approach for a generation of students" let's go ahead and fund that too. First you're going to have to define what that is, though. And you'll probably want to support the "under-served area" charge while you're at it. That a student cohort is doing terribly is not evidence that they're under-served. It's more likely that they're being "equally-served", but would need to be massively over-served in order to overcome the crippling effects of poverty.

Advocating nebulous "comprehensive approaches" that fulfill "necessary prerequisites" are all well and good, but in the past such things have been a recipe for throwing hundreds of millions of dollars down a hole with the exact same outcomes. At least by investing in buildings, you have something tangible, and can more easily maintain your investments.[/quote]

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