The Plan To Force Charter Co-Locations

Hard to see Cuomo's forcing the city to pick up the tab for charter school rent as aimed at anything other than the eventual return of the charter co-location scheme Bloomberg operated:

New York City's move to oust three charter schools from district buildings appears to carry a hefty price tag.

The mayor's budget sets aside $5.4 million in the coming fiscal year to lease sites for three Success Academy charters—more than $11,000 in rent for each child expected to be enrolled.

The price tag comes after Mayor Bill de Blasio revoked space in district buildings for the three charters in February, leading to an outcry from supporters of the high-performing network, whose students are almost all poor and black or Hispanic. After a state budget deal in April gave charters broad new protections, the city scrambled to find spaces for the schools.

City officials are negotiating leases to house the charters in three Catholic schools that are empty or closing. The city's Office of Management and Budget shows an expected allocation of $5.4 million a year for four years. 

Success Academy said last month that in the coming year, the three charters plan to teach a total of 484 children in kindergarten through seventh grades. If they grow to include more than 1,200 children as planned, the rental cost would become less than $4,500 a child.

Expensive, right?

Ah, but magnanimous Eva Moskowitz has a solution:

Eva Moskowitz, founder of Success Academy, said via email: "We thought the original locations made sense but we are grateful to the mayor for having found us alternative sites."

And so does the WSJ:

Mr. de Blasio came into office promising to curb the expansion of charters under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but softened his tone this spring. Gov. Andrew Cuomo brokered a budget deal that requires the city to provide free space in education department buildings to charters that are new or phasing in, or chip in up to $2,755 a student in rental costs.

While co-locations are the cheapest option for siting charters, some parents complain about clashing schedules and unfair access to gyms, cafeterias and other resources. Chancellor Carmen Farina has dispatched "campus squads" to resolve these disputes.

In short, the city's picking up the tab for charter school rent is unsustainable and that means we'll eventually be back to the co-locations battles.

Bloomberg is gone but the charter school entrepreneurs will always find other champions for thier cause.

Now it's Andrew Cuomo.

In the future, it will be somebody else.

And the charter schools keep multiplying:

Now, 183 charters serve 70,918 students. In the fall, 15 new charters are slated to open, and the city projects enrollment will rise to 82,989. The New York City Charter School Center projects enrollment to top 95,000 in 2017, and now counts a wait list of more than 50,000 students.

The mayor's budget includes spending city funds of $13,527 a student in charter tuition, plus $250 a child in new state money, for a total of $13,777 a student. Rental costs come on top of that rate.

The mayor's budget anticipates spending $1.29 billion on charters in fiscal 2015, up $247 million from the current year. 

Tell me again why de Blasio is urging Working Families Party to endorse Andrew Cuomo for re-election?

The reason why the city will have to pick up charter rent in perpetuity, no matter how rich a charter school is, no matter how much money it can raise, is Andrew Cuomo.

I mean, I understand political expediency and all, but has anybody given de Blasio more headaches these first months in office than Andrew Cuomo?