An underfunded regular public school; a money-draining charter school
(Guest post by Greg Forster)
I can see that school buildings are going to be a big topic for us for the foreseeable future. There’s the feds’ desperate need to blow money on something, anything, in the “recovery” bill (they’re no longer even bothering to call it a “stimulus” bill, apparently). And Jay’s post on school construction last week generated some interesting conversation in the comment thread.
Then last week opponents of the bill had a lot of fun spotlighting its provision of $89 million for school construction in Milwaukee, despite the fact that Milwaukee has had major enrollment declines leading to lots of empty and “underused” buildings, its buildings are deemed to be in good condition, the city has no plans for any construction projects, and just last year it had a major scandal centering around the waste of tens of millions of dollars in construction funding.
But here’s something I don’t think anyone outside Milwaukee has highlighted yet. In the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s story on the funding, somebody at the paper (presumably a bemused editor) inserted the following subtitle above a section of the story:
What is “Construction”?
Somebody get Socrates on the line, because it’s a good question. As a commenter pointed out on Jay’s post last week, once money goes into the system, we can’t be sure what it really gets spent on. We know how much money was budgeted for “construction,” but typically there’s nobody checking to see what was actually bought with those “construction” funds.
Sure enough, the Journal Sentinel quotes a state Democratic spokesperson saying that all of that yummy yummy swag for “school construction” could legitimately be spent on “school modernization.”
Next month’s headline: “What is ‘School Modernization’?”
Do these sound like conditions under which the money will be spent wisely? And don’t kid yourself that Milwaukee is somehow a special exception, and the stimulus money is going to be well spent elsewhere.
Suppose you don’t believe the vast mountain of empirical research that Jay cited last week. Let’s just drop all that science into the toilet bowl and flush. Even so, can anyone believe that money will be well used when it’s handed over to a system that has no real transparency, much less effective oversight, never mind accountability for results – and that is run by people who also just happen to derive political power by diverting school funding into an enormous gravy train of featherbedding, pork, etc.?
If we’re dumb enough to hand over the money under those circumstances, why would they not divert it to the gravy train? I’m amazed the schools in the government monopoly system aren’t even worse than they are.
But wait. There’s yet another school building story on the horizon. This one broke out in the edreformblogosphere just yesterday.
They built it with surplus “school construction” money
Like Milwaukee and pretty much every other city, St. Louis has long-term declining enrollment, but that didn’t stop it from pouring tons of money into school construction over the past few decades. Now St. Louis has a bunch of empty school buildings it needs to unload, so it’s going to sell them off.
But not everyone is allowed to bid on the empty school buildings. Joanne Jacobs puts it succinctly: “The school board has banned sales of buildings to liquor stores, landfills, distilleries, sex shops and charter schools.”
Read that again: Liquor stores, landfills, distilleries, sex shops and charter schools.
Not much more to say, is there? Charters are the one sector of the government-owned education system that is 1) growing fast, 2) willing to take on the most disadvantaged, toughest-to-teach kids, and 3) producing improved results, and they do it with less money – especially less construction money! – than the regular system. But they aren’t allowed to buy – not take for free, but buy, as in purchase at market value, by paying actual money – the city’s empty buildings.
Some typical St. Louis charter schools
I’m with Matt – if the system’s defenders don’t realize they’re destroying millions of children’s lives in order to funnel money to a corrupt gravy train, it’s only because they don’t want to know.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
It’s enough of a disgrace that public charter schools often don’t get funding for buildings (which is the case in Arkansas). But not even allowing them to buy buildings? That’s amazing.
St. Louis, you’ve been pwnd.
I wonder if this would hold up to a legal challenge.
It really throws a wrench in my plans to open up a chain of one-stop liquor store/sex shop/landfill/charter schools.
Hey, I thought we were going to go into the chain as partners!
If we add fireworks stores, we could create the perfect Missouri billboard advertisement; those aren’t banned from these buildings, so that’s an in, right?
The “guilt by association” here is horrific. I am shocked and dismayed that they unfairly lumped sex shops in with other four nefarious types of organizations.
Here’s a question I hadn’t originally thought of. Could some clever developer engage in arbitrage? Or are they writing the terms of the purchase with a rider that the property may never, in perpetuity, ever be resold to a charter school?
Could you buy the building and then lease the space to a charter school? Or are they writing in a rider for that, too?
Good idea Greg. I don’t know if you remember the story, but that’s what a Georgia town did in reverse–they bought a strip club through a middleman so they could burn it down. The middleman made a quarter of a million in the deal.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-09-05-3225453907_x.htm
Good for them! Money well spent.
I mean, assuming they checked first to make sure there were no other locations in town where the place could feasibly open back up. Otherwise they’re morons.
Hey, there’s an idea we could propose as an alternative to blowing $800+ billion on a phony stimulus. Remember, every building we burn down will help housing prices turn around. It’s win-win!
Greg, I don’t think your idea will work. Missouri wrote into the law that “charter schooling activity is prohibited within 100 yards of a school.” Children need to be kept safe from that kind of stuff.
No charter schooling activity within 100 yards of a school, eh? But charter schools are schools! Does that mean charters have to hold their classes 100 yards outside their own buildings?
But seriously, why does that mean my idea won’t work? These buildings aren’t schools any longer, so why would that law prevent you from opening a charter in the building?
Oh, and BTW, I read the story about the Georgia town and they didn’t actually burn the place down. They just burned the signs; the building’s intact and they’re looking for a buyer. And this time they’re going to check the buyer out more first. (The previous owner promised them he was opening up a family restaurant when he bought the place and applied for permits. He had a whole business presentation and he bought the restaurant supplies and everything.) So there goes my idea for rescuing the housing market with an $800 billion national campaign to burn down immoral businesses.