When charter schools get too picky
The Pacific Collegiate School in Santa Cruz, Calif., is a public charter school. It must hold a random lottery when it has more applicants than vacancies. It is not supposed to be selective.
Yet somehow its average SAT score has risen to the top tenth of one percent among all public schools nationally. Less than ten percent of its students are low-income, compared to 40 percent in its city. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that the school is allowed to ask (not require, its principal emphasizes) that every family donate $3,000 and 40 hours of volunteer time a year.
As a supporter of the charter school movement, I get grief from people who say that charters—independent public schools using tax dollars—are private schools in disguise. They are almost always wrong about that, but there are enough Pacific Collegiate situations to make me wonder if the rules need revision.
Places like California, where the law allows some preferences, are more likely to have this problem than D.C. The District’s charter law and