In zero states can you show up at a charter school and say “I live next door, I want to enrol” and be enrolled. That is an enormous difference from public schools that immediately eliminates the most disadvantaged students from the applicant pool.

Moreover, some charter schools require things like parental time volunteering, which eliminates more kids, or introductory essays - they don’t score the essays! They just require it to be done! By horrible coincidence this eliminates more cough lower performing children, who simply never submit a completed application for the lottery, so sad. This definitely happens in multiple states but here’s one specific example:

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-charter-app...

> By horrible coincidence this eliminates more cough lower performing children

If it's not scored it can't possibly eliminate low-performing children on that unconflated characteristic alone - a motivated underperformer will still get in.

It eliminates the unmotivated, which correlates obviously with underperforming. While it can be a vicious circle, I'd say no-motivation -> underperformance is of much greater relevance than underperformance -> no-motivation.

The obvious hint is how it tests the parents too. sure. maybe they are very motivated but just work so much they cannot volunteer or spare any time, but doesn't that also somewhat render their 'motivation' moot as well?

That is concerning, but the original post was claiming a significant variance of state law. The wested legal summary focuses on that.