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EDITORIAL
Invest in public schools
(Published May 30, 2005)

Seven years ago, when this newspaper began publication, public school buildings in the District of Columbia were in deplorable, unhealthful condition.

Today, despite seven years of "concerned" federal and local politicians continually wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth about the state of public education in the nation's capital, most of the same deplorable, unhealthful conditions remain.

The public can draw only one valid conclusion from these theatrics, which have gone on far longer than this newspaper has been in existence: Government officials who can fix the problems really don't care. And most of them who have school-age children invest part of their public salaries in private school tuition, so that, on a personal level, they can continue to be unaffected by their misfeasance.

Let's explore a few of the ways in which these officials have chosen to invest millions of public tax dollars during those same seven years:

• The D.C. Board of Education and D.C. Public Schools administrators moved their offices from downtown to Capitol Hill, where their rented, Class-A office space includes such amenities as toilets that flush and building maintenance workers who can be called on to promptly replace burned-out light bulbs.
• The mayor, city council and other top public officials moved their offices back into the ornately restored Wilson Building on Pennsylvania Avenue after an expensive battle to buy back the building's lease from a politically connected, private developer.
• Washington's professional basketball and hockey teams were lured back to town from the suburbs with a deal that taxed local businesses to help build MCI Center, while closing down part of a Chinatown street and removing the businesses that operated there to make way for the sports arena.
• The new Washington Convention Center, the most expensive construction project in the city's history, was built and remains unfinished, in a deal that raised hotel taxes and left city taxpayers still paying off about $30 million of construction costs for the old convention center, which has been demolished.
• City officials committed to building a new stadium in the South Capitol Street commercial corridor as part of a deal to lure a Major League Baseball team back to the nation's capital, but they are still trying to figure out how to pay the approximately $1 billion, including financing charges, that the project will cost.

Notably, city officials miraculously found an extra $24 million laying around somewhere and sprung into action within a matter of months to spend it earlier this year on renovating RFK Stadium before the Washington Nationals' inaugural season opened in April.

Such quick turnaround shows that where there is political will in the nation's capital, there is a way to get the job done. Regrettably, the health and welfare of D.C. public schoolchildren just don't matter as much to the District's public officials as being able to cheer on a bunch of well-paid adults as they play games.

Copyright 2005 The Common Denominator