Funding Education Opportunity: Grading states’ K-12 open enrollment laws

Good morning,

A new Reason Foundation report, “Public Schools without Boundaries 2024,” ranks the K-12 open enrollment laws of all 50 states and finds just five states get “A” grades. Open enrollment laws let students transfer from their assigned public schools to other public schools with open seats. Reason Foundation’s rankings are based on seven best practices for open enrollment, which are essential to good policy, as shown in Figure 1. 

Figure 1: Open Enrollment Best Practices and State Ranking Methodology

Metric	Full Value
1. Statewide cross-district open enrollment required	60
2. Statewide within-district open enrollment required	15
3. Public school districts free to all students, including transfers	10
4. School districts open to all students	5
5. Transparent state education agency  reports	4
6. Transparent district-level reporting for parents, policymakers	4
7. Transfer applicants can appeal rejected applications	2
Total Possible Points for State Open Enrollment Laws	100

In the study, the policies and metrics that expand school choice options most, such as statewide cross- and within-district open enrollment, receive the highest values, while complementary metrics that bolster good open enrollment laws, such as transparency provisions, received lesser values. A good statewide cross-district policy requires all of the state’s public school districts to accept transfer students so long as seats are available at the incoming schools.

Overall, Reason Foundation found that only five states—Oklahoma, Arizona, Idaho, West Virginia, and Utah—scored an “A” in overall open enrollment policies. Oklahoma’s open enrollment law is the best in the nation, scoring 99 out of 100 points. The state’s only minor deduction was because school districts aren’t required to inform denied applicants in writing why they were rejected.  

Idaho’s open enrollment laws were ranked second best in the country. Arizona and West Virginia also earned “A” grades and tied for third place. 

Figure 2 summarizes every state’s open enrollment grade and overall score. 

Figure 2: Ranking States Open Enrollment Laws

Seven states’ open enrollment laws earned “Bs,” including Florida, Kansas, Colorado, and Delaware. In most cases, these states can easily improve their solid rankings by improving open enrollment transparency reports for parents and lawmakers. 

For instance, if Florida law required state agencies to collect and publish open enrollment data in an annual report, the state’s score would improve from a B+ to an A.

In many cases, states could significantly improve their rankings by requiring all school districts to participate in within-district open enrollment. For instance, if Wisconsin adopted this policy, it would improve to 5th place nationwide instead of 10th. 

Unfortunately for public school students, most states have a lot of work to do. Our rankings give 33 states grades of “F,” largely because they don’t require school districts to participate in cross-district open enrollment. Weak open enrollment policies like these let school districts opt out of the program and block transfer students they perceive as undesirable or don’t want to accept. 

In some cases, such as Ohio, state policymakers could expand existing cross-district open enrollment policies so all school districts participate. This reform would significantly strengthen Ohio’s law, as well as those in 25 other states.

However, some states don’t have codified voluntary open enrollment programs, leaving transfer policies wholly up to school districts. For instance, four states–Alaska, Maine, North Carolina, and Maryland–tied for dead last, scoring zero points in the report. While some school districts may permit transfers in these states, open enrollment is not codified in state law.

The good news is that open enrollment is succeeding in places where it has been implemented and there is a lot of appetite for open enrollment policy. Last year, state legislators introduced at least 85 proposals involving open enrollment. Ultimately, three states–Indiana, Oklahoma, and Nebraska–codified proposals that significantly improved their open enrollment laws.

Moreover, K-12 open enrollment is a popular form of public school choice with parents of school-aged children, with 75% of parents with kids supporting it, according to national polling by EdChoice and Morning Consult. Plus, data from Colorado, Wisconsin, and West Virginia show that open enrollment is the most popular form of school choice. 

In the 2025 legislative sessions next year, state policymakers and school choice advocates advance policies that help students attend schools that are the right fit, regardless of where they live, and open enrollment can be an important part of that.

What to Watch

Kentucky, Colorado, and Nebraska voters will consider ballot measures related to school choice while voters in Florida and California review ballot measures on school board elections and funding.

Kentucky advocates are making their final appeals to voters about Amendment 2, which would let the legislature fund K-12 students outside of traditional public schools. If the constitutional amendment passes, the legislature could codify school choice programs, such as charter schools or private school scholarships. In 2021, the legislature codified a tax-credit scholarship program, which was later ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court the next year. Opponents of the amendment argue it will take funding away from traditional public schools.

In Colorado, Amendment 80, another constitutional amendment, would establish a right to school choice for every child. While Colorado has robust public school choice options via charter schools and open enrollment, the state does not offer private school choice programs. 

In September, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that a referendum to partially repeal a new private school choice program could appear on the November ballot. Last spring, the legislature codified Nebraska Education Scholarships, which families can use to pay for private school. Policymakers appropriated  $10 million to the program, which prioritizes students from low-income families.

Florida voters will decide about Amendment 1, which would implement partisan school board elections. Since 1998, school board elections have been non-partisan. If the amendment passes, candidates would have to disclose their political affiliations. Proponents argue that this will make elections more transparent, while opponents claim that the elections will become more politicized. 

A California ballot measure, Proposition 2, would let the state “issue $10 billion in general obligation bonds for the construction, improvement, and repair of educational facilities statewide,” Reason Foundation’s Christian Barnard wrote. Proponents argue that the school districts need funds to maintain school buildings, especially since approved funding from the last state bond initiative in 2016 is gone. Opponents argue that state bonds generally benefit wealthy school districts most and that local taxpayers should pay those costs instead.

After Student First Technologies failed to effectively roll out Arkansas’ Education Freedom Account–the state’s private school scholarship program–the Arkansas Department of Education will terminate its contract with Student First Technologies as of December and is seeking bids from new vendors. “A new contract is expected to be awarded by November 18,” the Arkansas Advocate reported. Five new companies submitted applications as of the Oct. 18 deadline.

Former President Donald Trump stated support for school choice at the federal level, calling it the “civil rights movement of our time.” While most education funding is state and local and should be that way, Trump said that “federal dollars [should] follow the student,” according to Fox News.

The Latest from Reason Foundation

–What the Birth Dearth Means for Public Schools at The Dispatch

Fewer students, increased competition from homeschools, charter and private schools, and a massive fiscal cliff mean that traditional public schools must adapt if they hope to successfully compete in the post-COVID education landscape. 

–Florida Amendment 1 would implement partisan elections for district school boards 

–Kentucky Amendment 2 would allow state funding for non-public education 

–California Proposition 2 would issue $10 billion in public education facilities bonds 

–Arkansas K-12 education finance series: Teacher pay before and after the 2023 LEARNS Act

–Arkansas K-12 education finance series: How to improve the state’s school funding system

–Virginia’s K-12 funding system needs an overhaul, not tweaks

Recommended reading 

Should the Wealthy Benefit from Private-School Choice Programs?
Derrell Bradford and Michael J. Petrilli at Education Next

“The well-off are a powerful constituency, and the public school apparatus has offered them an educational and financial package so lucrative that few people could (or do) say no, whether they reside in red states or blue. Thus, in building a “diverse” constituency to ballast themselves politically, the public schools have appealed not in a targeted way to the needy, but broadly and most beneficially to those who need very little. And, to date, this strategy of subsidizing the rich has worked brilliantly for the system.”

Earn-and-Learn Education
Bruno V. Mann at National Affairs

“Today’s earn-and-learn apprenticeships are cultivating both hard skills and soft networks. Building on the traditional registered-apprenticeship model, these programs foster opportunity pluralism at the K-12 and post-secondary levels. This moves the locus of learning from the campus to the workplace — and that is good news for young Americans.”

No Silver School-Spending Bullets
Marguerite Roza and Maggie Cicco at Education Next

“Districts can tweak their own budgeting processes, but some small nudges from states could help reorient budgeting on a larger scale. Specifically, states could require that student outcomes be reviewed as part of the budget process and that the budget be reviewed when new test scores emerge. And states could establish minimum financial training requirements for district leaders and board members so they are better equipped to factor in returns on investments during each budget cycle.”

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Source: https://reason.org/education-newsletter/grading-states-k-12-open-enrollment-laws/