Public schools without boundaries 2024

Full Report: Public Schools Without Boundaries 2024

Introduction

K-12 open enrollment lets students transfer to public schools other than their residentially assigned one so long as space is available. School parents widely support this policy.

Public polling from October 2023 by yes. every kid. and YouGov showed that 84% of school parents supported it, while EdChoice’s July 2024 polling showed that 73% of school parents supported open enrollment. EdChoice’s polling found that, of this subgroup, 69% of Republicans, 81% of Democrats, and 71% of Independents supported the policy.

Open enrollment policies can help many students find schools that are the right fit, which is critical since 85% of K-12 students nationwide are enrolled in public schools. Unfortunately, most states’ student transfer laws are weak or ineffective.

Only 16 states had strong open enrollment laws in 2023. However, three states—Indiana, Nebraska, and Oklahoma—significantly improved their open enrollment laws during the 2024 legislative sessions. At the same time, policymakers in 21 states introduced at least 40 bills that aimed to improve open enrollment laws.

This analysis updates Reason Foundation’s 2023 ratings of states’ open enrollment laws, introduces new metrics and a new ranking system, and highlights the latest open enrollment research.

New Research on K-12 Open Enrollment

Reason Foundation’s 2022 and 2023 reports on open enrollment included the latest data about its benefits. Since then, education researchers have published new data on open enrollment.

Benefits of Open Enrollment

Students participating in Arizona’s, Colorado’s, and Florida’s open enrollment programs tended to transfer to school districts that were ranked higher by the state, according to Reason Foundation research.

A 2024 report by Tufts University Professor Elizabeth Setren about the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO), a voluntary open enrollment program in Boston, Massachusetts, showed that students were motivated to participate due to smaller class sizes and access to Advanced Placement (AP) classes. This research compared METCO participants with students who applied to METCO but were not accepted between the 2002-03 and 2019-20 school years. It found that METCO participants had higher math scores on state tests in 3rd-8th and 10th grades and that METCO participants in 3rd-8th grades scored higher on state tests in English Language Arts. METCO participants also had increased attendance, lower suspension rates, and increased on-time graduation rates compared to denied applicants. Notably, METCO participants were 17 percentage points more likely to enroll in a four-year college and six percentage points more likely to graduate from college than their denied peers. The report also found that METCO participants were more likely to be employed in Massachusetts and have increased earnings.

Barriers to Open Enrollment

Available to All published a report showing that 26 states do not criminalize address sharing, which occurs when families falsify their addresses to gain access to certain public schools. It found that no state requires school districts to reserve capacity for cross- or within-district transfer students and that only 21 states always let students transfer without the approval of their residentially assigned school districts. A 2024 brief by yes. every kid. found that one state—Idaho—prohibits school districts from discriminating against applicants based on where they live.

In 2023, Ballotpedia collected data on the open enrollment policies of 45 school districts in 17 states. These data revealed the open enrollment practices in mostly large, urban school districts and the barriers many transfer applicants faced. Notably, 56% of these school districts had no clear or objective methodology for determining capacity. Moreover, 31% of the 45 school districts didn’t have “essential transfer” information easily accessible on their websites. Lastly, 25% of these school districts required transfer applicants to submit their applications before March of the preceding school year.

Fiscal Incentives Matter

A follow-up analysis of the “Ohio Education by the Numbers 2024” highlighted how the fiscal incentives that can accompany open enrollment policies matter to school districts. Although participation in Ohio’s cross-district open enrollment program steadily increased in prior years, student participation dropped in 2022. The follow-up analysis attributes this decline to a 2022 change to the state’s funding formula, which reduced the funding that followed students to their new school districts. Previously, school districts received a full base amount of more than $6,000 per transfer, but now only receive a percentage of the base amount. In some cases, school districts received a fraction, just 13%, of previous funding amounts. It also made it difficult for school districts to know how much funding would accompany transfers. As a result, cross-district open enrollment participation dropped by more than 5,900 students, or 7%, between fiscal years 2021 and 2024. This decline was most pronounced in wealthy districts. This case study illustrates why strong fiscal incentives are important to encouraging school districts to participate in open enrollment.

Open Enrollment Data Are Often Opaque

Reason Foundation published a report highlighting the open enrollment data each state education agency (SEA) must collect or publish by law. The report showed that only 13 states must report the number of transfer students by district annually, only six states report the number of rejected transfer applicants by district annually, only five states annually report why the district rejected applications, and only six states are required by law to publish an annual open enrollment report. Without these data, policymakers, taxpayers, and families are often in the dark about school districts’ open enrollment practices. Families can use these reports to reveal and appeal unfair or bad open enrollment practices, legislators can use them to improve open enrollment laws, and taxpayers can use them to gauge the merit of school districts’ requests to increase levies or staffing.

New Data on Open Enrollment Participation

Since open enrollment data are scarce, ascertaining the exact number of students and their characteristics is often challenging. However, collecting the limited open enrollment data available provides insights into how this policy generally affects students and public schools.

On average, 10% of students in Arizona, Florida, and Wisconsin used open enrollment during the 2021-22 school year, totaling more than 450,000 students. Nearly 177,000 of these transferred to schools in other districts. In Wisconsin, open enrollment was the most popular form of school choice and the second most popular in Arizona and Florida during that time, according to data published by Education Next.

Table 1: Open Enrollment Participation in Three States 2021-22

State	Total open enrollment participants	Number of cross-district transfers	Number of within-district transfers	Percentage of public school enrollment
Arizona	115,932	99,615	15,132	11%
Florida	262,968	5,509	257,459	9%
Wisconsin	71,489	71,489	NA	9%
Total	450,389	176,613	272,591

Similarly, data from Colorado showed that more than 199,000 students used open enrollment during the 2023-24 school year, and about 29% of these were cross-district transfers. Notably, open enrollment participants accounted for 28% of public school enrollments statewide.

A report about Indiana’s cross-district open enrollment program found that more than 87,000 students used it during the 2023-24 school year, an increase of about 6% compared to the previous school year. Participation in cross-district open enrollment increased steadily since 2018, growing by 64%. Some districts used cross-district transfers to bolster their enrollments—in seven districts, cross-district transfers accounted for half of the districts’ total enrollments.

As well, the Georgia Public Policy Center collected data from 21 of Georgia’s 69 largest school districts about the state’s statewide within-district open enrollment program. The report found that nearly 26,000 of the state’s public school students applied for a public school transfer. Of those applications, 79% were approved. This means that at least 20,448 used open enrollment during the 2023-24 school year. Combined with the data from Colorado and Indiana, nearly 307,000 students used open enrollment during the 2023-24 school year in these states.

Students Use Cross-District Open Enrollment to Access Higher-Rated Schools

Eighty percent of cross-district transfers in Arizona and 72% of those in Florida used cross-district open enrollment to access school districts rated as A or B by the states during the 2021-22 school year.

Figure 1: Cross-District Transfers by District Ranking 2021-22

Likewise, Wisconsin school districts with better ratings gained more transfers on net than those with lower ratings. In fact, during the 2022-23 school year, the top-rated Wisconsin school district increased its enrollment by 13,000 students, while lower-rated districts lost more than 54,000 transfer students overall.

Figure 2: Wisconsin Cross-District Transfers by District Rating 2022-23

Rural Students Use Open Enrollment

While data from Arizona, Florida, and Wisconsin revealed that urban and suburban districts generally benefited most from open enrollment during the 2021-22 school year, they also showed that open enrollment is popular in rural school districts, which received more than 29,000 transfers.

In Wisconsin specifically, rural school districts received the most transfers after suburban school districts—31% overall.

Figure 3: Open Enrollment Transfers by Locale 2021-22

Rural school districts categorized as “fringe”—those nearest both urbanized areas and towns—benefited most from open enrollment.21 In Wisconsin, rural fringe school districts increased their enrollments by 2,500 additional students on net, even though they didn’t receive the most transfers.

Figure 4: Cross-District Transfers to Rural School Districts 2021-22

Similarly, in Colorado, rural school districts received more than 7,000 cross-district transfers during the 2023-24 school year. The majority of these rural transfers, 78%, occurred in school districts categorized as remote, those most distant from towns or urban areas.

Public Schools Charging Tuition Can Be a Barrier for Transfer Students

Reason Foundation collected data on 62% of Virginia school divisions and found that 55, or 42%, of them charged tuition to cross-district transfer students. The average tuition rate was $4,000 per student. However, at least eight of Virginia’s public school divisions charged more than $10,000 per transfer student.

Similarly, in Ohio, Reason Foundation found that at least 22 public school districts charged tuition to cross-district transfers, with the average tuition fee costing families approximately $11,000 per student. Such exorbitant fees can deter students from transferring schools, reducing options for families to find the best fit for students.

Open Enrollment Best Practices and Updates

Seven key components characterize robust open enrollment laws.

While no state has fully adopted all seven of Reason Foundation’s best practices, one state—Oklahoma—has adopted six of them in full. While previous editions of this study used five metrics to evaluate best open enrollment practices, this year’s analysis introduces two new metrics: public schools are open to all students, and transfer applicants can appeal rejected applications. All other metrics remain the same as in previous reports. States only get credit for a metric if it is clearly included in their open enrollment laws.

Table 2: Reason Foundation’s Seven Best Practices for Open Enrollment

1. Statewide Cross-District Open Enrollment: School districts are required to have a cross-district enrollment policy and are only permitted to reject transfer students for limited reasons, such as school capacity.

2. Statewide Within-District Open Enrollment: School districts are required to have a within-district enrollment policy that allows students to transfer schools within the school district and are only permitted to reject transfer requests for limited reasons, such as school capacity.

3. Children Have Free Access to All Public Schools: School districts should not charge families transfer tuition.

4. Public Schools Are Open to All Students: School districts shall not discriminate against transfer applicants based on their abilities or disabilities.

5. Transparent Reporting by the State Education Agency (SEA): The State Education Agency annually collects and publicly reports key open enrollment data by school district, including transfer students accepted, transfer applications rejected, and the reasons for rejections.

6. Transparent School District Reporting: Districts are annually required to publicly report seating capacity by school and grade level so families can easily access data on available seats. Open enrollment policies, including all applicable deadlines and application procedures, must be posted on districts’ websites.

7. Transfer Applicants Can Appeal Rejected Applications: Districts must provide rejected applicants with the reasons for their rejection in writing. Rejected applicants can appeal their rejection to the SEA or other non-district entity, whose decision shall be final.

This Report’s Ranking Methodology

For the first time, Reason Foundation’s open enrollment rankings will assign letter grades to each state’s policy, identifying weaknesses and strengths in their laws. This system ranks states’ open enrollment policies on a scale of 0-100, assigning grades “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” and “F” to states based on their rankings. The letter grade “A” would correspond to a score of 90+, a grade of “B” to 80+, “C” to 70+, and “D” to 60+. All lower scores are ranked as “F.”

States receive full credit when they meet a metric’s requirement and partial credit when a metric is only partially fulfilled. For example:

Table 3: Summary of Ranking Categories and Points

Metric	Partial Value	Full Value
1. Statewide cross-district open enrollment		60
Voluntary cross-district open enrollment	30/60
2. Statewide within-district open enrollment		15
Voluntary within-district open enrollment	5/15
3. School districts free to all students		10
4. School districts free to all students		5
Prohibit discrimination based on ability	2/5
Prohibit discrimination based on disability	3/5
5. Transparent SEA reports		4
The state publishes annual reports	1/4
Includes the number of transfer students	1/4
Includes the number of rejected applicants	1/4
Includes the reasons why applicants were rejected	1/4
6. Transparent district reporting		4
Districts must post their available capacity by grade level	2/4
Districts must post their open enrollment policies and procedures	2/4
7. Transfer applicants can appeal rejected applications		2
Districts must provide reasons for rejections in writing	1/2
Rejected applicants can appeal to a non-district entity	1/2
Total Possible Points		100

The categories making up the open enrollment best practices and rankings are:

1. Statewide cross-district open enrollment = 60 points.

Statewide cross-district open enrollment typically expands public school choice the most for students. Since it offers the most educational options, its weight is significantly greater than others, giving states a major boost in achieving a higher rank. States with voluntary or limited cross-district open enrollment receive partial credit, valued at 30 points.

2. Statewide within-district open enrollment = 15 points.

Statewide within-district open enrollment is the second most valuable metric since it expands schooling options for students living inside a district’s geographic boundaries. This reform is worth fewer points since it’s easier to achieve because students and their education dollars remain inside the assigned district. States with voluntary or limited within-district open enrollment receive partial credit, valued at 5 points.

3. School districts free to all students = 10 points.

Tuition can be a major barrier to transfer students, especially when it costs thousands of dollars. Removing this barrier is an important victory for students whose families cannot afford to pay public school tuition. There is no partial credit for this metric.

4. School districts open to all students = 5 points.

State law should make clear to school districts that access to public schools shouldn’t depend on an applicant’s ability or disability. Open enrollment laws that clearly state that school districts cannot discriminate against transfer applicants based on their disability receive 3 points, while districts that stop school districts from discriminating against applicants based on their ability, i.e., academic achievement, GPA, past or future academic record, receive 2 points. The former is of higher value since students with disabilities have not always had equal access to education.

5. Transparent state education agency (SEA) reports are available = 4 points.

These state education agency reports ensure policymakers, families, and taxpayers can hold school districts accountable for their open enrollment practices. Moreover, this metric often only requires tweaks to existing reports, making it an easier reform. Each component is valued at one point. To receive credit, states must codify that the SEA must publish district-level open enrollment data in an annual report = 1 point, which includes the number of transfer students = 1 point; the number of rejected applicants = 1 point; and the reasons why applicants were rejected = 1 point.

6. Transparent school district-level reporting = 4 points.

States that require school districts to post their policies and procedures on their websites receive 2 points; requiring school districts to post their available capacity by grade level earns a state an additional 2 points. If a state requires school districts to post available capacity but not by grade level, it can receive 1 point.

7. Transfer applicants can appeal rejected applications = 2 points.

States that require school districts to provide rejected applicants with the reasons they were denied in writing receive 1 point, while those that offer an external appeals process to rejected applicants can receive an additional point.

Ranking Every State’s Open Enrollment Policies

The most common weaknesses in states’ open enrollment laws are poor appeals processes, or insufficiently transparent SEA reports. No state fully meets all seven of Reason Foundation’s open enrollment metrics. However, Oklahoma fully meets six out of seven of Reason Foundation’s open enrollment metrics. Idaho fully meets five out of seven open enrollment metrics, and Arizona, Florida, Utah, and West Virginia fully meet four out of seven of Reason Foundation’s open enrollment metrics.

Using Reason Foundation’s best practices checklist as a measure: 16 states have statewide cross-district open enrollment, 14 states have statewide within-district open enrollment, 28 states make public schools free to all students, 10 states make public schools open to all students, three states’ SEAs publish annual open enrollment reports, eight states have transparent district-level reporting, and three states have a strong appeals process.

Based on these open enrollment metrics, five states–Arizona, Idaho, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia—earn grades of “A” in this report, seven states earn grades of “B,” three states get grades of “C,” two states are ranked as “D,” and 33 states scored grades of “F.”

State-by-State Open Enrollment Analysis

Note: See Hawaii’s summary for an explanation of its score.

For more information on each state’s policies and scores, you can read their summaries:

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

Full Report: Public Schools Without Boundaries 2024

Previous Editions of Public Schools Without Boundaries

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Source: https://reason.org/open-enrollment/2024-public-schools-without-boundaries/