Crowded Schools Find Space in Religious Buildings Here's a little bit of a church-state paradox: Even as the city presses its bid to evict churches that rent worship space in public schools, it is educating thousands of children from overcrowded schools in spaces rented from parochial institutions, where students often walk past crosses and other religious images to get to their secular classrooms. All together, the city pays more than $20 million a year in rent for classrooms to some 50 religious institutions - mostly Catholic, with a smattering of Protestant, Greek Orthodox and Jewish. Read more on SchoolBook