How to Make It in Mayor Bloomberg's New York
Money for charter schools exploded from about $32 million to about $659 million over a decade as Bloomberg increased their number from 17 when he took office in 2002 to 125 in 2010-11, the most recent year for which spending data are available.
Why on earth are we wasting our time with this public school stuff? Well, for one thing, we aren't very smart. Clearly the money is in running the charters, not teaching in them. Charter teachers are largely not unionized and subject to the caprices of their employers. I have not met a single student teacher who wanted to work in one except as a last resort.
And where does Mayor Mike get all that money to dump into charters? For one thing, he unilaterally denies teachers the 8% raise virtually all other city workers got between 2008-2010. And this is instructive. When the city pattern
