Eva Moskowitz Expands Her Empire

No surprise here - the pro-charter shills at SUNY approved 17 new charter schools for New York City, including 14 Success Charters:

The state approved 17 new charter schools for New York City on Wednesday, substantially increasing the size of one of the city’s largest and most polarizing charter networks, Success Academy, and setting up a battle over where the schools will be located.

The state’s charter schools committee, part of State University of New York’s board of trustees, approved 14 new Success Academy schools, which will bring the network to a total of 50 schools serving 16,300 students by 2016, the network said. The new schools would begin with kindergarten and first grade, and then grow each year as new grades are added. Three new Achievement First charter schools were also approved.

...

The new Success charters are approved to open in Districts 2 and 3 in Manhattan; 9 in the Bronx; 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 22, and 23 in Brooklyn; and 24, 27, 28 and 30 in Queens.

The city is now on the hook to either find space for these charters or pay their rent.

At two Success Academy schools where the city is paying the rent, it's costing $32,000 per student.

With 14 new Success schools to come and space already at a premium, expect the city to be on the hook for millions of dollars in rent for these newly-approved charters.

That money will come directly out of the public school budget and be given to Eva Moskowitz even as she spends millions on herself and on pro-Success/anti-public school advertising.

While the battles over space and funding for the 17 new charters are going to be hard-fought, the bigger battle is going to come in the spring when charter sdvocates push to either raise or eliminate the charter school cap in the city.

Governor Cuomo gave Eva and the other charter school entrepreneurs a giveaway in the last budget when he forced the city to either find space for new charters or pay their rent.

You can bet a re-elected Cuomo will be out to help Eva and his charter buddies in the cap battle too.

It is really important that public school advocates and supporters vote AGAINST Andrew Cuomo in next month's election.

Holding Cuomo below 50% in the election will go a long way toward weakening him for the cap battle in the spring.

The latest Quinnipiac Poll has Cuomo at just 51% support, with Rob Astorino at 31% and Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins at 9%.

Given the fights to come over charter funding, the cap, Common Core and other education battles, putting Howie Hawkins in double digits and holding Cuomo under 50% of the vote is very important.

It will be a hell of a lot easier to fight a weakened Cuomo in these battles.