City to pay $11G per student in three charter schools booted from public space

charlierose.com The city will pay a whopping $ 11,000 in rent for each student in three Success Academy charter schools booted from public space in February by Mayor de Blasio.

The city will pay a whopping $ 11,000 in rent for each student in three Success Academy charter schools booted from public space in February by Mayor de Blasio.

The stunning sum for this coming school year will nearly double the amount the city pays for a typical charter school student’s entire annual education, set by state law at $ 13,527, to above $ 24,000.

The city has set aside $ 5.4 million a year for the next four years to pay the rent for the three schools. The figures were first reported in The Wall Street Journal Thursday.

Success Academy founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz said she is glad that de Blasio found new sites for the schools, an arrangement that was mandated by the Legislature in a law passed after de Blasio booted them from public classrooms.

“We thought the original locations made sense, but we are grateful to the mayor for having found us alternative sites,” said Moskowitz, a former city councilwoman who has frequently clashed with de Blasio.

The schools will be housed in buildings belonging to the New York Archdiocese and the Brooklyn Diocese in Manhattan and Queens.

De Blasio officials said the princely sum they’ve ponied up for the charter school chain is squarely in line with typical costs for renting similar spaces for district schools.

Success Academy founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz said she is glad that de Blasio found new sites for the schools, an arrangement that was mandated by the Legislature in a law passed after de Blasio booted them from public classrooms.

But city officials wouldn’t reveal the exact price of the arrangement because the lease is still being negotiated. The $ 5.4 million cost doesn’t include the price of renovations to the schools.

“The leases are still being drawn up, so final costs have not yet been determined,” said de Blasio spokesman Wiley Norvell.

Under a state law passed in April, the city will be on the hook to provide free space or pay the rent for new charter schools that open in the five boroughs.

Those costs could easily reach hundreds of millions of dollars over time. Fifteen new charter schools are set to open in the city for the 2014-15 school year, with six more schools planning for the 2015-16 school year.

With Stephen Rex Brown

Yahoo Local News – New York Daily News

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