Here is another example of how education dollars do not improve student performance. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on a $48 million middle school that has all the ?right stuff.? The ?newly structured learning plan? consists of a high-ceilinged lobby, a ?green? roof (environmentally friendly), geothermal heating and cooling provided by 144 wells sunk 500 feet in the earth, recycled materials in carpets, ceiling tiles, counters and tack boards; heat and motion sensors throughout the building, etc. etc. To help create smaller leaning environments each grade level is housed on a separate floor in the building. This school has all the latest education fads!
This new school building replaces a school building that opened in 1923.
What completes this story is the blog on D-Ed Reckoning. This school is one of the wealthiest in the commonwealth. Therefore few ?poor? children attend. Interesting that in 2004 per pupil expenditure was $16,277 per pupil! The ?dirty little secret? is that this school does not know how to educate its lower income pupils any better than some failing inner city school.
The blog says it best:
?Radnor has it all. The best school building. The best teachers, or at least the best paid teachers. The best students. And, the best urinals. And, yet it struggles to educate the black children of the upper middle class and the children of the lower middle class, regardless of race.
Radnor is the rule, not the exception. I could have focused on almost any other affluent school district and gotten the same results. The more money we let schools soak us for education, the more schools we’re going to see like Radnor Middle School. Bright and shiny on the outside; rotten on the inside. The problem is instructional, not financial.?