The charter school industry in Néw York City is well-supported by hedge-fund billionaires, but they used their riches and political clout to compel the city to pay the charters’ rent in private space.
When Mayor Bill de Blasio had the temerity to suggest that amply-funded, privately-managed charters should pay rent (based on their ability to pay), the hedge-fund managers poured millions into a TV ad campaign attacking de Blasio and invested millions in Governor Cuomo’s campaign, assuring his loyalty to charters.
What a smart investment for charters, even though it robs the 1 million children who are not enrolled in charters.
“It’s huge,” said Great Oaks Charter School founder Michael Duffy, who became the first school leader to test the nascent law’s limits this summer. Duffy estimates his Lower Manhattan school stands to receive about $300,000 to cover rent for about 109 students in seventh grade this year.
Great Oaks is one of 46 city charter schools in private space that added grades, according to the New York City Charter School Center, and more than 3,600 students from those schools were enrolled in new grades. Most of those schools successfully appealed to the State Education Department for rental assistance over the last several months.”
Duffy ran the city’s charter school office from 2007-2010 when Joel Klein was chancellor.
“But the city’s costs are certain to continue to add up, as more schools open and enrollment increases at expanding schools. Next school year, the charter center’s enrollment projections would put the maximum tab just for expanding schools at $17.8 million.
“One of those new schools, South Bronx Early College Academy Charter School, will be due more than $300,000 for 110 six graders next year, according to the founding principal.
“It’s a heck of a gift,” said the founder, Ric Campbell.
“The city is obligated to spend $40 million to cover rent costs of eligible charter schools if they are not given space inside of a city-owned building, according to the law. Once the bills hit the $40 million ceiling, costs will be split with the state.”
Those hedge-fund managers are very smart. They even figured out how to get the city to pay the rent for their hobby schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Best government money can buy.
When will it all stop?
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Politicians don’t mind shelling out taxpayer dollars to private corps because they know they’ll get a sizeable kickback into their own campaign warchests and “petty cash” accounts. So it’s all win-win … except for the loser taxpayers who fund the whole moolah merry-go-round.
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Crony capitalism – the American way. Soon the hedgefund managers will figure out a way to convince the politicians that they too are too big to fail. Then they will take outrageous risks and get the taxpayers to cover their losses.
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Meanwhile:
New York City Homelessness: The Basic Facts from the Coalition for the Homeless
(http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-homelessness-new-york-city/):
In recent years, homelessness in New York City has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
In February 2015, there were 60,484 homeless people, including 14,386 homeless families with 25,105 homeless children, sleeping each night in the New York City municipal shelter system. Families comprise nearly four-fifths of the homeless shelter population.
Over the course of the last City fiscal year (FY 2014), more than 116,000 different homeless men, women, and children sleep in the New York City municipal shelter system. This includes nearly 42,000 different homeless New York City children.
The number of homeless New Yorkers sleeping each night in municipal shelters is now 66 percent higher than it was ten years ago.
Research shows that the primary cause of homelessness, particularly among families, is lack of affordable housing. Surveys of homeless families have identified the following major immediate, triggering causes of homelessness: eviction; doubled-up or severely overcrowded housing; domestic violence; job loss; and hazardous housing conditions.
Research shows that, compared to homeless families, homeless single adults have much higher rates of serious mental illness, addiction disorders, and other severe health problems.
Each night thousands of unsheltered homeless people sleep on New York City streets, in the subway system, and in other public spaces. There is no accurate measurement of New York City’s unsheltered homeless population, and recent City surveys significantly underestimate the number of unsheltered homeless New Yorkers.
Studies show that the large majority of street homeless New Yorkers are people living with mental illness or other severe health problems. Four out of five street homeless New Yorkers are men.
As in other American cities, New York City’s unsheltered homeless population is concentrated in the central business district – that is, midtown Manhattan. Surveys show that nearly 60 percent of New York City’s unsheltered homeless population is in Manhattan.
African-American and Latino New Yorkers are disproportionately affected by homelessness. Approximately 57 percent of New York City homeless shelter residents are African-American, 31 percent are Latino, 8 percent are white, 1 percent are Asian-American, and 4 percent are of unknown race/ethnicity.
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It would be nice if an honest charter school operator was willing to acknowledge they are getting more money per pupil than typical public schools. Somehow their students are never charged even $1 for all the DOE bureaucratic and administrative costs which benefit their pupils just as much as public school students. So in truth, public schools get far less — perhaps less than half of the NYC DOE dollars that a well-funded, millionaire donor led charter school network gets per student to actually spend in their school. Let’s not even add in all the federal dollars that charter schools rake in.
I suppose if the end game of the charter schools is to destroy public education then I understand why they condone dishonesty in pursuit of that goal. It’s too bad their hatred of union teachers has blinded them to the great harm they are doing to the students who are the most vulnerable (and who, coincidentally, many of those schools won’t teach).
For those of us parents who use our own money to subsidize the ever shrinking budget of our neighborhood public school, it is certainly frustrating to see parents at neighboring charters getting MORE money per student than our school gets and seeing the ever increasing number of affluent parents there who are crowing about how they love never having to donate a penny and getting all sorts of expensive luxuries from their charter school that apparently has money to burn. It is a little frustrating to hear those same parents crowing about how great it is that those charters get rid of all the problem students so their gifted son and daughter can be offered a special curriculum just for them, while their public school expends resources and time trying to teach those students the charter schools don’t want.
But at least those middle class parents can subsidize their kids’ education by PTA donations to purchase just a fraction of the things that well-funded charter networks lavish on their own students. It’s the students in the schools that aren’t being subsidized by parents who are suffering. Yes, those students in the failing public schools that the charter folks keep professing great concern for. They may not want most of those kids going to any of their schools — after all, they’d probably just end up suspended over and over again anyway — but they make handy props to attack public schools and demand even MORE funding to be taken away from those schools and given to them. Shameful.
Until I hear a charter school administrator speak honestly about this, I will continue to be skeptical that they have any concerns beyond making themselves rich. And being cowed by billionaire funders isn’t an excuse for silence when you know that dishonesty is wrong. Your school may help a handful of kids, but at the expense of the millions who are left behind and that is not a tradeoff any ethical person should be rationalizing as fine.
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NYC public school parent: thank you for your comments.
Your third paragraph is a classic—but don’t be surprised when you are attacked for baseless anecdotal slurs.
Of course, when anonymous [re name and school and job affiliation] charter zealots raise such concerns just remember what an old dead French guy said:
“Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.” [François de la Rochefoucauld]
😎
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“So in truth, public schools get far less — perhaps less than half of the NYC DOE dollars that a well-funded, millionaire donor led charter school network gets per student to actually spend in their school.”
And you have the temerity to accuse people of fudging numbers?
Remove the payments that are made to charter schools, and the DOE is spending about $23,000 per student this year. What NYC charter school is even remotely approaching that number?
http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/funding/overview/default.htm
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The difference between you and I, Tim, is that I am happy to acknowledge any mistake. Unlike you, I’m not interested in posting misleading numbers to justify policies that can’t be justified any other way. Remember when you claimed there were 34,000 low-income students in extremely wealthy District 2 in Manhattan and that’s who Eva Moskowitz really truly wants to help when she tries to open a THIRD school there that gives priority ONLY to District 2 residents and not at-risk students, just like the other two Success Academy schools ALREADY located in District 2 do? (Both those District 2 Success Academy schools have significantly less than half low-income students, naturally, but that is obviously what happens if you open schools in very wealthy districts where most parents are affluent and don’t give priority to low-income students! So I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you, Tim.)
But Tim, I pointed out that there were ONLY some 5,700 low income K-5th graders in District 2 — not your inflated number of 34,000 which included tens of thousands of teenagers who attend high schools in District 2 that serve primarily low-income students from all over the city. Did you really not realize that 28,000 of those students — that’s nearly 85% of them! — weren’t eligible to attend a District 2 Success School? Was the mistake unintentional? If so, will you correct it? Or are you happy to pretend there are tens of thousands of low-income District 2 students to serve, and that’s why Ms. Moskowitz is so determined to open a 3rd elementary school there instead of even ONE school in District 10 in the Bronx, where there really ARE over 20,000 low-income K-5 students (see, I’m not including teenagers to try to inflate that number, which is high enough by itself, don’t you think?)
But because I value honesty, I am happy to take a second look at the numbers you claim I have wrong. From your link I read this:
“In the 2014–15 school year, approximately $10 billion of the Operating Budget, not including most fringe and pension, resides on school budgets.”
But in the school budget of PS 87, I see that the 900 students are getting only 7.1 million dollars, which is under $8,000 per student. The only thing missing is the fringe and pensions, so I will add another 30% of the ENTIRE budget (which includes much more than salaries) and I still get only $10,000 per student being allocated to PS 87, and most likely it is less, since I also see a $200,000 PTA grant in there. But no matter how you slice it, the money that a typical public school gets from the DOE is significantly less than the $13,777 (is it more now) that Success Academy receives. And that does not include all the federal money and millions in donations.
But Tim, are you playing fast and loose with the numbers here just like you did when you implied that Eva Moskowitz was trying to serve those 34,000 low-income students in District 2 when the number was under 6,000? You think a public school gets $23,000 per student?
PS 87 has a budget over $20,000,000? Poppycock. You are doing the same thing you did when you claimed that Success Academy had over 30,000 low-income students to serve in District 2. It’s shameful that you are relegated to using such misleading statistics when you know that failing public schools are NOT getting $23,000 a student. Is the DOE spending a TOTAL of $23,000 a student? Perhaps, but that spending includes administrative costs that benefit ALL students, including the ones at charter schools. But public schools aren’t getting the nearly $14,000 per student that charter schools do to educate their selected group of students, and that is something you just won’t acknowledge. Why? Because low-income kids in public schools should just manage with less?
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What a surprise to discover that the link ostensibly provided to support Tim’s opinion gives no relevant information whatsoever.
Misdirect much, Tim?
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@NYC Public School Parent – Thank you for your well-written post. I couldn’t have said it better myself! I don’t know if this has been mentioned recently, but Scott Stringer is auditing the Success Academy network. This was announced in the fall. I’m curious as to what they will find. I’m sure they are doing nothing illegal, but I would bet that they aren’t as financially efficient as they claim. As for the Robin Hood Foundation which donates money to this network, the notion of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is actually false, as they are really stealing from the middle class for their own pet project. In the end the preferential treatment given to charter schools such as Success Academy hurts all families, regardless of SES and race, who have chosen to send their children to a real public school.
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Actually, the link does give relevant information, just not the information that Tim claims. Tim thinks that public school students — the poorest and most vulnerable — should pay every penny of long-retired teachers’ pensions. Tim thinks public school students should pay for new buildings, maintenance, crossing guards, g&t and shsat testing, payments to Pearson for the state tests, consultants. Tim thinks public school students should pay for suspension centers so there is somewhere that the 15% or 20% of the Kindergarten and first grade students who his favorite charter school suspends can go when they are told they are not welcome in their school.
Tim believes charter schools should use their $14,000 per year allotment to pay for teachers, supplies and high administrator salaries and everything else should be provided by the DOE for free. Out of the $23,000 charged to public school kids because they have to pay for all the free riders at charter schools. Sounds fair to Tim. What would happen if a charter school couldn’t rent expensive Manhattan office space with all the money they have leftover? Or pay for PR folks (is Tim one of them?) to post misleading statements that mirror the misleading statements some charter leaders make about how much money public schools really get to operate on.
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