Is he just spinning or out of the loop?

The other day my esteemed colleague Steve Poftak and I, in separate posts here and here, both jumped on a schizophrenic statement in a Boston Globe editorial to the effect that there is excess infrastructure and staffing in Boston’s public schools, yet, at least according to the Globe, the City should eliminate transportation for students attending private and parochial schools as a way to offset cuts. (As I wrote in my original post, I don’t disagree with the premise that the City shouldn’t be on the hook for the transportation costs of students whose parents choose not to send them to public school. I simply have a problem with the discrepancy between the excess capacity the Globe cites and the call to maintain it, rather than pare it back, as the City should.)

Now, today in Yvonne Abraham’s column, the mayor is quoted:

“We have a school system I tell ya that’s workin’ . . . the issue we have right now, too many people want to go to Boston public schools.”

Yet somehow the system remains underused.

Meanwhile, Charlie Chieppo, in an op-ed in the Herald, places the number of Boston students on charter school waiting lists at 7,000. And, as a 2008 WBUR piece pointed out, there’s 1400 students on the waiting list for Boston Collegiate Charter School alone.

Unless the Mayor’s done a 180 on charter schools and now embraces them as part of the city’s system (which he should), the problem isn’t too many students trying to get in. It’s far too many trying to get out.