In their march across the Brooklyn Bridge on Tuesday, charter school supporters demanded the next mayor of New York City keep Mayor Bloomberg's education policies in place that have helped charters thrive. These include allowing charters to co-locate inside public school buildings rent-free.
Bill de Blasio, the Democratic nominee for mayor, has pledged to reverse these two policies, according to GothamSchools:
De Blasio doubled down on those pledges on Tuesday, saying through a spokesman that "believes that well-resourced charter networks should pay for the use of school space, as charter schools do across the country." He'd also stop co-locations, an arrangement that has afforded schools free space inside city-owned school buildings, "until we can better assess their impact."
Both changes would affect a majority of the city's charter school sector. Over 60 percent of the city's 183 charter schools are housed in city-owned buildings, and more than half of the city's 50 proposals for new schools and co-locations involve charter schools.
