More states should expand school choice for public school students

School choice continues to make significant progress across the country. Texas recently made headlines with Gov. Greg Abbott signing Senate Bill 2 into law, establishing education savings accounts that could be used by up to 90,000 students during the program’s first year to help pay for homeschooling, virtual learning programs, private school tuition and more. Another often overlooked but crucial part of school choice is K-12 open enrollment, which lets students attend any public school with available seats.

On that front, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently signed an open enrollment bill letting public school students attend any public school inside their residentially assigned school district that has vacancies. This builds on the state’s 2023 LEARNS Act, which allows students to transfer to public schools in other school districts. So, students in Arkansas can now choose to attend any public school that has open seats.

Strong open enrollment laws weaken the tie between housing and schooling, making it easier for students to choose public schools that are the best fit rather than the schools they are assigned by their address. In addition to Arkansas’ new law, open enrollment proposals in Texas, New Hampshire, and Alaska have already passed one legislative chamber and could become law this year.

With 16 states now having strong public school open enrollment laws, here are three of the most important reasons other states should push this form of school choice to help tens of millions of public school students.

Open enrollment helps students go to public schools that are the right fit

Open enrollment can help students access public schools that achieve better academic outcomes than their assigned schools.

Data from Texas, Florida, Wisconsin, and Arizona show that students tend to transfer to school districts that perform better on standardized state tests, suggesting parents are looking for higher-quality public schools.

Seeking schools with better academic offerings isn’t the only reason public school students use open enrollment, however. A 2016 report from California’s Legislative Office (LAO) showed that the state’s students also use open enrollment to escape bullying.

Studies from West Virginia indicate that families use it to improve their quality of life and streamline commutes, making getting to work, school, and after-school activities easier. In Colorado, students use open enrollment to transfer to choose public schools offering smaller class sizes.

Open enrollment helps schools maintain enrollment levels

Strong open enrollment laws benefit students and school districts. Some small and rural school districts in California have used open enrollment to remain fiscally solvent by attracting new students. Timothy Walker, a school administrator at Riverside Unified School District in California, explained how open enrollment helps his district. 

“Does it make money? No. But does it keep our people employed? Yes. Does it keep our financial situation stable? Yes. Does it increase educational options? Yes,” Walker told  Education Next.

Riverside shows how open enrollment can help public schools experiencing declining local enrollments balance their budgets, retain staff, and keep their doors open by creating classes and programs that attract transfer students.

While schools and policymakers often worry that school choice may take students away from small public schools, data from Wisconsin and West Virginia showed that school districts outside of cities and suburbs benefit from open enrollment transfers. In fact, school districts in towns and rural areas attracted 50% or more of all transfer students in these states. Rural Wisconsin school districts experienced a net increase of 2,500 students due to incoming transfers from other public school districts.

Open enrollment incentivizes school districts to improve

The Legislative Analyst’s Office studies on the effectiveness of California’s District of Choice program showed that the competitive pressures that open enrollment fosters helped some of the state’s school districts improve. Some districts that initially lost students through the state’s choice program got community feedback on ways to improve and subsequently attracted and retained students. These changes included offering more college preparatory courses, such as Advanced Placement (AP) classes, and increased focus on math and science.  

A Becker-Friedman Institute study by scholars Christopher Campos and Caitlin Kearns in 2023 found that schools participating in the Los Angeles Unified School District’s within-district open enrollment program had positive effects on student achievement and college matriculation. The study found that the worst-performing schools improved the most after implementing open enrollment.

Similarly, a 2023 Reason Foundation report showed Wisconsin school districts that initially lost students through open enrollment responded and produced improved standardized test results in the years following their enrollment losses. 

Open enrollment is a win-win for students and school districts. As policymakers in states such as Missouri, Nebraska, and Georgia look to expand education options for students, they should follow the lead of Arkansas, which just passed its law, and the 16 other states, including Oklahoma and Kansas, with strong public school open enrollment laws. Letting students attend whichever public schools are the best fit for them is a straightforward way to improve public schools and student outcomes in every state.

A version of this column first appeared at RealClearEducation.

The post More states should expand school choice for public school students appeared first on Reason Foundation.

Source: https://reason.org/commentary/more-states-should-expand-school-choice-for-public-school-students/