Is Philly charter wait list make believe?

Philadelphia's most influential charter-school advocates are making a big push to open more schools and keep insisting that the demand is enormous: 40,000 city students, they say, are on waiting lists for seats.

But it's not clear that this number has any basis at all.

"We are not aware what comprises this 40,000," says School District spokesperson Fernando Gallard. "It would be important to get more detail about this number. It would be important for us, and I think it would be important for the general public, to drill down."

That has, so far, proven impossible. The Philadelphia School Partnership, PennCAN and Educational Opportunities for Families have all touted the same 40,000 number. The Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools says there is a statewide wait list of 44,000. None of the groups responded to requests by City Paper to explain where those numbers came from.

From penncan.org.

Philadelphia's most influential charter-school advocates are making a big push to open more schools and keep insisting that the demand is enormous: 40,000 city students, they say, are on waiting lists for seats.

But it's not clear that this number has any basis at all.

"We are not aware what comprises this 40,000," says School District spokesperson Fernando Gallard. "It would be important to get more detail about this number. It would be important for us, and I think it would be important for the general public, to drill down."

That has, so far, proven impossible. The Philadelphia School Partnership, PennCAN and Educational Opportunities for Families have all touted the same 40,000 number. The Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools says there is a statewide wait list of 44,000. None of the groups responded to requests by City Paper to explain where those numbers came from.

But the 40,000 figure of unknown provenance has nonetheless become a key talking point in a coordinated effort to pressure the School Reform Commission to back costly new charter schools that, due to the financial crises, the District is loathe to approve.

On Monday, the SRC began a series of hearings on applications for 40 new charter schools — totaling, apparently by coincidence, 40,000 new seats. The District has not accepted new charter school applications since 2007 because of repeated budget shortfalls that have prompted mass layoffs and school closings. It has been estimated that each new student who enrolls in a charter school costs the District as much as $7,000 in addition to regular spending — money it simply doesn't have.

Over the summer, the state legislature included a measure requiring the District to accept applications for new charter schools in legislation authorizing a hike in the city's cigarette tax. The District plans to use the increased tax money to help fund city schools. The provision, backed by Republican legislators, also permits applicants to appeal School Reform Commission decisions to the state Charter School Appeal Board.

Groups like the Philadelphia School Partnership have previously called for Harrisburg legislators to condition funding of Philly schools on measures that are aligned with their favored policy changes, supporting Gov. Tom Corbett's move to attempt to withhold $45 million in federal funds in exchange for teacher-union concessions.

This is not the first time that charter school wait list figures, frequently cited in media reports nationwide, have attracted scrutiny.

In May, researchers at the University of Colorado's National Education Policy Center criticized annual figures released by National Alliance for Public Charter Schools as "apparently based on a survey of charter schools...offered on a 'trust us' basis. To the best of our knowledge the organization simply announces their interpretations of the results, never providing any of the key information needed to verify or understand their bottom line number."

Contacted by City Paper, NAPCS declined to respond to the criticism of their figures.