The below excerpt from an interview with state auditor, Suzanne Bump, again lays to myth the notion that there are 37,000 students waiting for a charter school seat. The auditor performed a state audit a while ago, and blogger EduShyster follows up with an interview. Read the entire interview.
EduShyster: I want to ask you specifically about the charter school waiting list, as it figures prominently in your audit and is the centerpiece of the campaign to lift the state’s cap on charter schools. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, the waiting list has been referred to approximately 37,000 times since cap lifting season began.
Bump: The waitlists aren’t accurate and the state has acknowledged this. They say they’re improving them, but they’ve been saying that for some time. We were able to see the duplications that are in there, that haven’t been eliminated by whatever steps the state alleges to have taken over the years. Some of the duplication is the result of double counting because of the way that names are entered across different systems. But then there’s also the fact that when you apply to multiple schools you can end up being counted multiple times. So an application for one child looks like it’s more because they are on multiple schools’ waiting lists. That kind of duplication has not been successfully addressed by the agency, and so the list continues to overstate the number of kids that are waiting for placements…