Just the Facts, Ma’am
STATE AUDITOR SUZANNE BUMP PERFORMS AN AUDIT OF HER AUDIT
I sit down with Massachusetts State Auditor Suzanne Bump (which is a lot more exciting than it sounds…)
EduShyster: First of all, allow me to congratulate you. You took the top spot in a category that I like to call *most read audit by people who have never read an audit before.* I’m talking, of course, about youraudit of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), specifically, their oversight of the state’s charter schools. What did you find?
Suzanne Bump: What we found was that DESE was using subjective standards, that there wasn’t an even application of standards when they were, say, renewing the charters of schools. We looked to try and determine whether the data they were putting out relative to student demographics was accurate, whether waitlists were accurate. This is information that guides DESE’s policy making and we found it to be unreliable because the state never verifies it. Data reliability testing is the first thing you do in auditing. You can’t reach proper conclusions if we can’t rely upon the data and we found that we couldn’t rely upon the data. That’s a warning to DESE that they shouldn’t be either.
EduShyster: I think I can explain what happened. Charter schools are laboratories of innovation, as unique as snowflakes, so of course it wouldn’t make sense to apply a uniform standard to them. Am I onto something here?
Bump: If they’re failing to meet certain standards, then the penalties should be the same no matter what the institution is. Or there should at least be explanations as to why that’s not the case. The schools should all be treated the same way and they’re not, and there’s no explanation given. Different schools would be given a pass on certain deficiencies. Other schools would be directed to take specific actions. There would be conditions attached to some charters that you would think would be applied to others that had committed the same transgressions.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 a campaign to lift the state’s cap on charter schools. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, the waiting list has been Just the Facts, Ma’am | EduShyster:
