City downsizes school development plans

The city is decreasing the number of new schools it’s builtding over the next five years as part of its budget cuts. City officials said they would spend $11.3 billion to create 42 schools, enrolling 25,000 children, over the next five years. About 8,000 of those enrollment seats were included in the plan Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced five years ago — which aimed to create 76 new school buildings — but were never built. “We cannot afford to continue spending at the same levels as in recent years, when we undertook the largest capital construction program in our city’s history,” said Schools Chancellor Joel Klein in a statement. Yesterday, school officials said that they were confident
even the more modest approach would help reduce crowding in parts of
the city where the population has boomed in recent years.