Return To Teachers Village: Part I
Earlier this month, Rachel Cohen of The American Prospect wrote an article about Teachers Village, a development project in Newark, NJ that houses three charter schools in addition to retail stores. Teachers Village is unusual in that it also has dozens of housing units that are specifically marketed to teachers. Developments like this are actually starting to pop up across the country, fueled by a series of tax breaks, including the New Markets Tax Credit.
Cohen quotes yours truly several times in the piece on the basis of a series of posts I've written -- see here, here and here -- where I question the wisdom of using public monies to build facilities that are rented to both publicly-funded charter schools and the people who work in them. I especially wonder why Ron Beit, the developer of Teachers Village, and his investors should get all sorts of public largess when the project seems like it's designed to cater to renters who are likely not going to be career-long educators:
Beit's got himself one sweet deal, doesn't he? He uses $100 million in tax credits to finance a project in Newark, then lines up a group of charter schools as his business occupants, who will pay their rents with taxpayer funds.- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/12/return-to-teachers-village-part-i.html#sthash.98EMDzY7.dpuf
Then, as if that isn't enough, he sets himself up to direct a steady flow of college-educated renters right into his residential units - through TFA [Teach For America]! In fact, TFA has a page where prospective "teachers" can figure out their expenses when they move to