Bloomberg a charters champion

$200M school gift

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced on Monday that he’s donating $100 million each to two high-profile charter-school networks: Harlem Children’s Zone and Success Academy.

The investment — billed as a means to help close the achievement gap and meet demand for school-choice seats — is part of a larger $750 million nationwide push that the billionaire has made for charter schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“One foundation can’t take care of everybody. But we can act as an example to show that you can really do it,” Bloomberg told The Post during a visit to the Harlem Children’s Zone Promise Academy, where he announced the donation.

“I don’t know that 30 years from now, when they don’t have the kind of life that we’d want for them, you can explain to them what happened and why we were asleep at the switch,” he added of current students. “We’re trying to do something about it.”

Priorities include school facility improvements, teacher recruitment and retention, learning-loss and mental-health services and college and career readiness programs.

Bloomberg Philanthropies has donated $35 million to Harlem Children’s Zone for general operating support, and added $65 million on Monday for new plans, including upgraded buildings and classroom space and additional remedial teaching and health services.

“We should lean in, whether it’s in traditional public school or in charter schools,” said Geoffrey Canada, founder and president of Harlem Children’s Zone. “But we got to do something about education because the country’s future — certainly the future of black and brown poor children in this country — are on the line right now.”

Teacher retention

Some of the cash infusion will also go toward a college scholarship fund for students pursuing four-year college degrees, as well as internship and career-readiness programs. Other funding has been earmarked for retaining teachers through professional development, loan forgiveness and other incentives.

That’s an investment Kwame Owusu-Kesse, CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone, said will trickle down to students.

“There’s no more important person that you can put in front of a young person than their teacher,” he said.

At Success Academy, the $100 million gift — the largest in its history — is expected to support constructing a new campus in the South Bronx that could educate 2,400 students from all grades in one building.

The plan is pending city approval.

“We are adding seat capacity, adding the number of students. Our demand is off the charts,” Eva Moskowitz, the founder and CEO of Success Academy, told The Post, predicting enrollment could grow by a third over the next five or six years.

Moskowitz described the investment as “taking a stand” and “really sending a powerful message about K-12 and education reform.”