For many years, the charter lobbyists have claimed that there were long waiting lists of students hoping to get into a charter school. This claim should be taken with pounds of salt. No one ever audits these lists. A reporter in Boston once told me that he tried to audit the list and found many duplicate names, names of students who had already enrolled in a charter school, and some who had already graduated high school. Obviously, there is political benefit in never updating the wait lists, which helps charter advocates demand more charters.

Lisa Haver, a public school activist, reported that a review of public records reveals that more than half the city’s charter schools are underenrolled.

She writes:

In recent months, promoters of school choice lobbied Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to expand the state’s voucher program to include the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success Scholarship Program (PASS) which would divert an additional $100 million from public school districts to private schools. Already established voucher programs in the state include the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and the Education Improvement Tax Credit.

Shapiro, after intense pressure from public school advocates, reversed his position and signed the state’s $45.5 billion budget without the voucher provision.

School choice proponents claim that public school students are “trapped” in failing schools, trying in vain to find an alternative. A recent Sunday Inquirer editorial, written by wealthy suburban backers of more privatization of the city’s schools, painted public schools as “cages” from which children could not escape. The only solution, they claim, is to take funding for public schools and give it to individuals to use as tuition to attend private schools. Their version of school choice does not acknowledge that the choice is not the families’ but the schools’–who can reject any applicant without explanation and can discriminate against students on the basis of sexual identity. Most voucher money would go to students already attending religious and exclusive private schools. Education policy expert Josh Cowen writes that a decade of research indicates that vouchers actually lower academic achievement.

What those lobbying for more voucher programs can’t explain is why more families don’t leave the district schools, which they paint with a broad brush as “failing”, and attend any of the district’s 83 charter schools. They refer to the elusive “charter waiting list” of 25, 000 students (inexplicably down from their previous list of 40,000) without producing the list or offering proof of any kind of its existence. The truth is that there is no charter waiting list for the simple reason that most of the city’s charter schools are under-enrolled.

Current data shows that 58 of the district’s 83 charter schools–67%–are under their authorized enrollment. Fifteen charter schools are between 20% and 40% under-enrolled. Two schools are below 50% of their authorized enrollment. Families living in any part of the city could choose from among the 65 charters with citywide admission. Renaissance schools are nominally neighborhood schools, but many have a large percentage from outside their official catchment areas.

Obviously, Philadelphia’s schoolchildren are not trapped in district schools. Parents have fought to stop the hostile takeover of their schools by charter companies, and many continue to choose district public schools over charters. In addition, the low percentage of in-catchment enrollment at Renaissance charters shows that parents will travel farther rather than attend a charter they find to be substandard.

Philadelphia’s schools need more funding, not less. Diverting money to private and religious schools means fewer educational opportunities for Philadelphia’s children.


Note: All data cited in this report can be found on the School District of Philadelphia website. Current enrollment figures are from the 2022-23 school year (except where noted). Schools with enrollment lower than authorized are designated “under”; percentages are given for those more than 5% under-enrolled.

In the balance of the article, Haver identifies the schools that are undeeenrolled.