LOS ANGELES (AP) — Next month’s opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will be auspicious for a reason other than its both storied and infamous history as the former Ambassador Hotel, where the Democratic presidential contender was assassinated in 1968. With an eye-popping price tag of $578 million, it will mark the inauguration of the nation’s most expensive public school ever. The K-12 complex to house 4,200 students has raised eyebrows across the country as the creme de la creme of ” Taj Mahal ” schools, $100 million-plus campuses boasting both architectural panache and deluxe amenities. “There’s no more of the old, windowless cinderblock schools of the ’70s where kids felt, ‘Oh, back to jail,’” said Joe Agron, editor-in-chief of American School & University , a school construction journal. “Districts want a showpiece for the community, a really impressive environment for learning.” Not everyone is similarly enthusiastic. “New buildings are nice, but when they’re run by the same people who’ve given us a 50% dropout rate, they’re a big waste of taxpayer money,” said Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution who sits on the California Board of Education. “Parents aren’t fooled.” At RFK, the features include fine art murals and a marble memorial depicting the complex’s namesake, a manicured public park, a state-of-the-art swimming pool and preservation of pieces of the original hotel. Partly by circumstance and partly by design, the Los Angeles Unified School District has emerged as the mogul of Taj Mahals. The RFK complex follows on the heels of two other L.A. schools among the nation’s costliest — the $377 million Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, which opened in 2008, and the $232 million Visual and Performing Arts High School that debuted in 2009. The pricey schools have come during a sensitive period for the nation’s second-largest school system: Nearly 3,000 teachers have been laid off over the past two years, the academic year and programs have been slashed. The district also faces a $640 million shortfall and some schools persistently rank among the nation’s lowest performing. Los Angeles is not alone, however, in building big. Some of the most expensive schools are found in low-performing districts — New York City has a $235 million campus; New Brunswick, N.J., opened a $185 million high school in January. Nationwide, dozens of schools have surpassed $100 million with amenities including atriums, orchestra-pit auditoriums, food courts, even bamboo nooks. The extravagance has led some to wonder where the line should be drawn and whether more money should be spent on teachers. “Architects and builders love this stuff, but there’s a little bit of a lack of discipline here,” said Mary Filardo, executive director of 21st Century School Fund in Washington, D.C., which promotes urban school construction. Some experts say it’s not all flourish and that children learn better in more pleasant surroundings. Many schools incorporate large windows to let in natural light and install energy-saving equipment, spending more upfront for reduced bills later. Cafeterias are getting fancier, seeking to retain students who venture off campus. Wireless Internet and other high-tech installations have become standard. Some pricey projects have had political fallout. After a firestorm over the $197.5 million Newton North High School in Massachusetts , Mayor David Cohen chose not to seek re-election and state Treasurer Timothy Cahill reined in school construction spending. Now to get state funds for a new school, districts must choose among three designs costing $49 million to $64 million. “We had to bring some sense to this process,” Cahill said. In Los Angeles, officials say the new schools were planned long before the economic pinch and are funded by $20 billion in voter-approved bonds that do not affect the educational budget. 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. Connie Rice , member of the district’s School Bond Oversight Committee, noted the megaschools are only three of 131 that the district is building to alleviate overcrowding. RFK “is an amazing facility,” she said. “Is it a lot of money? Yes. We didn’t like it, but they got it done.” Construction costs at LA Unified are the second-highest in the nation — something the district blames on skyrocketing material and land prices, rigorous seismic codes and unionized labor. James Sohn, the district’s chief facilities executive, said the megaschools were built when global raw material shortages caused costs to skyrocket to an average of $600 per square foot in 2006 and 2007 — triple the price from 2002. Costs have since eased to $350 per square foot. On top of that, each project had its own cost drivers. After buildings were demolished at the site of the 2,400-student Roybal school, contaminated soil, a methane gas field and an earthquake fault were discovered. A gas mitigation system cost $17 million. Over 20 years, the project grew to encompass a dance studio with cushioned maple floors, a modern kitchen with a restaurant-quality pizza oven, a 10-acre park and teacher planning rooms between classrooms. The 1,700-student arts school was designed as a landmark, with a stainless steel, postmodernistic tower encircled by a rollercoaster-like swirl, while the RFK site involved 15 years of litigation with historic preservationists and Donald Trump , who wanted to build the world’s tallest building there. The wrangling cost $9 million. Methane mitigation cost $33 million and the district paid another $15 million preserving historic features, including a wall of the famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub and turning the Paul Williams-designed coffee shop into a faculty lounge. Sohn said LA Unified has reached the end of its Taj Mahal building spree. “These are definitely the exceptions,” he said. “We don’t anticipate schools costing hundreds of millions of dollars in the future.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Joe Turant pointed to the rent-a-text signs in Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Florham Park , N.J., bookstore window last month and told his incoming freshman daughter, Caitlyn, “That’s what you’re doing.” With potential savings up to 50% off the price of a new textbook, the Colonia, N.J., father says renting textbooks will free up money for other things, such as the meal plan. E-BOOKS: iPad the next textbook? Maybe not “If we can get them through rental, great. Otherwise, she’s going to go online to try to find a lower price,” says Turant, who jokingly reminded his daughter that “Dad’s paying.” College students will be able to shop early and save hundreds of dollars on textbooks as more than 1,000 campus bookstores nationwide launch discounted rental programs this fall. The timing is right: The federal Higher Education Opportunity Act, which took effect July 1, says colleges must list required course materials for students during registration. “Students will be able to take advantage of more cost-saving options sooner, and they can save hundreds,” says Nicole Allen, textbook advocate for the Student Public Interest Research Groups. College textbook prices have risen at nearly four times the rate of inflation since 1994, with an average of $900 spent a year, Allen says. Successful pilot programs The rise of rentals means students can see substantial upfront cost savings without having to gamble on buying a used book and hoping the bookstore will buy it back, Allen says. Students can highlight and write in the rentals; normal wear and tear is expected. The country’s two largest college bookstore companies, Follett and Barnes & Noble, embraced the rental option after successful pilot programs last fall. Just 250 college campuses nationwide offered some textbook rental program during the 2009-10 school year, according to the National Association of College Stores. This fall, some 1,300 campuses will offer textbooks for rent. In late July, Follett had 720 of its 860 stores adopt the rental option, says spokesman Elio DiStaola. And half of Barnes & Noble’s 640 campuses have signed on, says Jade Roth, vice president for books at Barnes & Noble College Booksellers. Follett saved students $2 million off the cost of new textbooks in its seven pilot bookstores, including the University of Texas-Arlington, the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, and Rio Hondo Community College in Whittier, Calif., DiStaola says. An online alternative Typically, about 25% of the bookstores’ titles were available for rent. This fall, the stores expect to offer about 40% of titles for rent. “I’ve had students come up and thank us for this,” says Bill Coulter, bookstore director at the University of Texas-Arlington, where 6,000 students chose to rent last school year. “In my 44 years in this business, that never happened before.” “One student came up to the register and saved $300 … he was excited,” says Lee Cobb, textbook manager at the University of North Florida’s bookstore. Chegg.com, a California-based online rental company with 4.2 million titles available for rent — some up to 80% discounted — is expanding, too, by partnering with eight campus bookstores this fall. It partnered with California State University in Fresno in January and saw its number of Fresno users jump from 400 to 1,600, says Chegg.com spokeswoman Tina Couch. Meanwhile, Kyle Smith , 21, a Bridgewater, N.J., political science major at Drew University in Madison, N.J., says he’s excited to see how much money renting textbooks can save him. Drew’s bookstore will offer about 30% of its titles for rent this fall. Typically, Smith shops online for used textbooks. Being able to see the books he’ll need and whether he can rent will help in deciding if he can afford to take a course, Smith says. “Some poli sci courses call for nine or 10 books,” Smith says. “For me, it’s all about the bottom line. If it’s cheaper to rent, that’s what I’ll do.”

Two Connecticut high school students whose district voted to hold June commencement for two high schools at an area megachurch are suing the district, saying the arrangement “coerces students and parents to receive the overwhelming religious message” of the church as the price of attending “a seminal event in their lives.” The lawsuit (pdf) , filed Wednesday on behalf of two unidentified students and three of their parents by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State , says the arrangement violates the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause as well as the state Constitution. The Enfield, Conn ., school board on April 13 reversed a previous decision not to hold commencement ceremonies at The First Cathedral, a Baptist megachurch in nearby Bloomfield. A handful of other Connecticut districts that had been planning graduation ceremonies there changed their plans last year after the ACLU threatened to sue. The lawsuit says the two Enfield High School seniors “do not subscribe to the Christian religion, and they would be deeply uncomfortable attending graduation in the Cathedral’s religious environment.” They want a judge to stop the graduations from taking place there. Vincent McCarthy, the school board’s attorney, said he had planned to meet with the plaintiffs’ attorneys. He noted that the church’s bishop was willing to cover up religious banners that are visible in the sanctuary. “Basically I told them that the case was settleable and that all of their complaints would be addressed,” McCarthy said. “But they went ahead anyway.” The complaint says that in addition to the church’s “obvious religious messages and symbols,” virtually every aspect of its architecture “has religious significance,” including a lower level that represents Earth, a middle level that represents heaven and a cupola that represents “the throne room of heaven, where God is.” McCarthy said the plaintiffs are “basically seeing things that the very designer of the church says were never intended. … There’s so much of it that’s just plain false that it’s hard to respond to.”

Two Connecticut high school students whose district voted to hold June commencement for two high schools at an area megachurch are suing the district, saying the arrangement “coerces students and parents to receive the overwhelming religious message” of the church as the price of attending “a seminal event in their lives.” The lawsuit, filed Wednesday on behalf of two unidentified students and three of their parents by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State , says the arrangement violates the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause as well as the state Constitution. The Enfield, Conn ., school board on April 13 reversed a previous decision not to hold commencement ceremonies at The First Cathedral, a Baptist megachurch in nearby Bloomfield. A handful of other Connecticut districts that had been planning graduation ceremonies there changed their plans last year after the ACLU threatened to sue. The lawsuit says the two Enfield High School seniors “do not subscribe to the Christian religion, and they would be deeply uncomfortable attending graduation in the Cathedral’s religious environment.” They want a judge to stop the graduations from taking place there. Vincent McCarthy, the school board’s attorney, said he had planned to meet with the plaintiffs’ attorneys. He noted that the church’s bishop was willing to cover up religious banners that are visible in the sanctuary. “Basically I told them that the case was settleable and that all of their complaints would be addressed,” McCarthy said. “But they went ahead anyway.” The complaint says that in addition to the church’s “obvious religious messages and symbols,” virtually every aspect of its architecture “has religious significance,” including a lower level that represents Earth, a middle level that represents heaven and a cupola that represents “the throne room of heaven, where God is.” McCarthy said the plaintiffs are “basically seeing things that the very designer of the church says were never intended. … There’s so much of it that’s just plain false that it’s hard to respond to.” The complaint is online at au.org/media/press-releases/archives/2010/05/au-aclu-enfield-complaint.pdf.