Major Charter School Chain To Lose Space Under New De Blasio Plan
 |
| New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio talks with children after reading them a book in a pre-kindergarten class at P.S. 130 on Feb. 25, 2014, in New York City. (Photo by Seth Wenig-Pool/Getty Images) | Pool via Getty Images |
NEW YORK -- Mayor Bill de Blasio is pulling back the space-sharing arrangements for three charter schools that are part of Success Academy, a high-profile school chain whose leader has been a frequent de Blasio target, sources within the charter school movement tell The Huffington Post.
Success Academy was founded as Harlem Success Academy by former city council member Eva Moskowitz in 2006, and has since grown to 22 schools. The chain, which was favored by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has been criticized for itsdisciplinary policies, although its students tend to perform well on standardized tests.
De Blasio is expected to make an official announcement on Thursday afternoon, and organizers are already mobilizing parents to fight back. Administration officials would not confirm the news, telling HuffPost an announcement would be forthcoming.
Sources said that two of the three schools whose arrangements were rolled back have not yet opened their doors: Success Academy City Hall and Success Academy Jamaica in Queens. But the other that's said to be losing its shared space, Success Academy Harlem 4, is operational, and the move would leave 210 fourth and fifth graders without school for the 2014-15 academic year.
Charter schools are publicly funded but can be privately run. Under the Bloomberg administration, such schools proliferated, with Schools Chancellor Joel Klein