Lars Larson: Building giant costly new (empty) schools

By Lars Larson
NW and national radio host,

The Northwest Nonsense

If you REALLY need another reason to flee with your kids from failing government schools in Portland, I’ve got a doozy.

Right now, students who live near Jefferson High school get some choice…Grant, McDaniel or Roosevelt.

But the school board JUST voted to take away that choice and force kids unlucky enough to live near an empty school that’s about to get a lot emptier to go there.

You see, the district has already contracted almost half a billion dollars to rebuild Jeff to hold 17-hundred .

Less than 400 kids currently choose Jefferson…so, like a lot of things the government does, your choice goes away.

Ask WHY the district plans to spend almost 500 million to rebuild a school with more than four times the space students need: Portland Public Schools can’t explain.

Racial politics clearly drives much of this nonsense. 80 percent of the students belong to racial minority groups.

And consider what you’re forcing students into at Jeff: only one student in five can do math, and less than half the kids can read but Portland Public Schools reward 90 percent of the kids with a participation trophy….I mean diploma.

What kind of sick parent wants his kids forced to go THERE?

That’s the Rose City Rap. Join me at noon on KXL for 4 hours of Honestly provocative talk. I’m Lars Larson