Priorities

When you're reading about all the fancy new stuff kids are getting access to in school, do you ever wonder how we made it through and miraculously aren't morons? They spend WAY more on education now and the children are somehow more ignorant.
Fair readers, let me direct you to the to object of my ire today. School vs Education My schools were built in the 50's and 60's, we didn't have air conditioning, and the classrooms were pretty boring. However, I managed to graduate in spite of all that, and surprisingly I'm not stupid. Considering my state is completely freakin' broke, and many teachers have been laid off, how can anyone justify this? Here's a great quote from the article"
      "Still, even LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines derided some of the extravagance, noting that donations should have been sought to fund the RFK project's talking benches commemorating the site's history."
Talking benches?! Are you serious? Talking benches!!!!! Like high school kids even give a crap about that stuff! How about teaching them to balance a checkbook, fill out job applications or take a job interview? Or something that is of particular concern to me: the ability to SPELL. Last year I volunteered on a scholarship committee at my job. The high school kids had to write an essay saying if they could pass any law, what would it be and why. For one, most of the kids parroted all the liberal BS they're currently learning from their teachers, but without the cognitive ability to state their argument even though they were proponents. Two, the grammar and spelling was so atrocious that after two schools I was ready to throw in the towel. It says a lot that the one child whose essay was so far above the others we thought he plagiarized it! 
Does the building in which students learn really matter? Besides the obvious safety concerns, do they need all this other fancy stuff? Are they of an age they actually appreciate it? At what point do we put the responsibility back on the students and parents? And lastly, were the voters aware the Los Angeles School District was going to build such a monstrosity with bond money when there are other schools in the district who need the money more?
I'm sure there are parents who would rather use the bond money to bus their kids to better neighborhoods than build one overpriced piece of artwork. As test scores show, LA reaaaallllyyyy knows what they're doing. Not!