NY City to Sell off School Buildings in Budget Crunch

August 1, 2008 (GBN News): While Governor David Patterson is deciding whether to sell off State facilities to raise cash in response to the current budget crisis, Mayor Bloomberg is not waiting to make up his mind about selling NY City properties. At a City Hall press conference, he and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced that a deal has been made with Bill Gates and Eli Broad to sell all New York City school buildings to the two billionaires’ respective foundations. The deal will be worth in the neighborhood of $2 billion, and, according to the Mayor, “will go a long way towards insuring a manageable Department of Education budget for years to come.”

The deal reportedly calls for the Gates and Broad foundations to replace every one of the hundreds of City schools with a small charter school in each. Chancellor Klein stated that, “Parents should be thrilled with the new arrangement. The schools will each have far fewer children than before, upgraded facilities, and smaller classes.”

Critics immediately pounced on the plan, contending that with the limited number of children that can be accommodated in the smaller charter schools, the rest of the students will be squeezed into smaller space with larger classes. But the Schools Chancellor was ready with a response. “What smaller space?” he asked. “The charters are taking over the whole buildings. There is no more space. But the beauty of this is, the rest of the kids can be home schooled. And you don’t get any smaller class size than that.”