What happens to the thousand kids on MAS charter school’s wait list?

(THE JUNE 15) front page of the Journal stated that the Mission Achievement and Success Charter School has been denied an enrollment cap increase for its two campuses that would occur over several years. Why? The Public Education Commission denial is based on traffic concerns despite the fact that there are no facts to back that up. Has a school zone been posted in the area as it is around the public schools in the city? No, despite numerous requests from the charter school.

Here are some disturbing facts taken from a Forbes editorial about this issue: “In early literacy,

MAS has outperformed the state of New Mexico, the Albuquerque school district and other area school districts by margins of 20-30% higher. They’ve seen similar results in math. Their student body is 90% minority and 81% economically disadvantaged. 100% of MAS students have graduated high school with acceptance to either college or the armed forces.” With those results, which far exceed the N.M. state averages, how can the PEC justify its denial of an increase to a successful charter school with a waiting list of almost 1,000 students?

This decision is not in the best interest of these minority and economically disadvantaged students. What will happen to those 1,000 students denied entrance into MAS? Will they have such excellent test results as they would have had they gone to MAS? And how likely are they to be accepted into college or the armed forces or even graduate?

Perhaps the PEC should reconsider the decision in time for some of these students to go to the school they prefer.