Open Enrollment Policy Research Articles

Wyoming

The Wyoming state legislature holds the responsibility of establishing and funding the education system, as outlined in the state constitution. The funding formula for K–12 education in Wyoming adjusts every 5 years and considers factors like inflation and regional cost differences. The state spends approximately $18,144 per public school student annually and allows districts to set their own open enrollment policies. Charter schools, under local school board jurisdiction, receive around $400,000 per year for lease payments, while privatized and religiously affiliated schools are ineligible to become charter schools. A failed legislative bill aimed to reimburse parents for private school or homeschooling expenses. In the 2022–2024 Wyoming state budget, $1.523 billion in state funding is allocated to the basic support formula for the 2022–2023 school year, with an additional $245.4 million for K–12 capital construction and major maintenance. Property taxes serve as the primary revenue source for K-12 education, and the state also utilizes the Permanent Wyoming Mineral Trust Fund and other permanent funds for supplemental investment income. Wyoming ranks among the top 10 states with the highest per pupil spending, with a state pupil expenditure of approximately $16,224 in 2023.

School Choice, Local Discretion, and Stratification: Evidence From Inter-district Open Enrollment in Metro Detroit

School choice policies can, by design or in implementation, give schools and districts discretion over enrollment. In this study, I examine the effect of local discretion over inter-district open enrollment on non-resident enrollment. I use longitudinal data on open enrollment patterns and policies in the metropolitan Detroit area. I find that when districts set more restrictive open enrollment policies, they enroll fewer new non-resident students overall, due to a decrease in new Black, Hispanic, and low-income non-resident students specifically. When districts allow inter-district open enrollment, racial and socioeconomic segregation within those districts do not change, and racial isolation slightly increases. My findings suggest that regulating enrollment policies to reduce discretionary exclusion can increase access to inter-district choice for some low-income and racially minoritized students, but that these kinds of policy changes are unlikely to reduce racial segregation and socioeconomic stratification more broadly.

“I'm Trying to Beat a Stereotype”: Suburban African American Male Students’ Social Supports and Personal Resources for Success in AP English Coursework

Background African American male students attending U.S. suburban schools remain severely underrepresented in Advanced Placement (AP) programs. A number of structural barriers, including racialized tracking policies; limited referrals from educators and school counselors; conventional AP practices centered on Eurocentric curricula, literature, and pedagogies; and educators’ deficit mindsets toward Black masculinity, mitigate African American male students’ access to and success in suburban AP classrooms. Despite these sobering realities, African American male students have achieved success in AP English Language Arts coursework. Yet few researchers have investigated the multiple and complex forms of support to which African American male students attribute their successful performance in AP English coursework in suburban high schools. Purpose/Research Question In an effort to close opportunity gaps in AP English programs, the present study illuminates the social supports and personal resources that African American male students mobilized to earn exemplary grades (i.e., maintaining a grade of B- or higher, or 79.6% or higher out of 100%) in an AP English Language and Composition and/or an English Literature and Composition course, and earn a passing score on the formal AP exam (i.e., 3 or higher). Countering deficit-oriented research paradigms, we employed an anti-deficit achievement framework to (re)position young African American men as capable, motivated, and agentive learners who marshal complex supportive networks, as well as their own personal resources, to successfully learn academic literacies in AP English classrooms. Our inquiry was guided by the following research question: To what social supports and personal resources do young African American men who graduated from a suburban high school attribute their success in AP English coursework? Participants Eight young African American men who were enrolled in AP English coursework in a suburban Mid-Atlantic secondary school were the participants in this study. Participants were successful learners who received exemplary grades in an AP English class, were taught by the first author, and earned a passing score on an AP English exam. Participants’ ages ranged from 21 to 33 years, and all were attending or had graduated from a four-year college or university. Research Design The young men participated in one-on-one, in-depth interviews. Interviews probed the participants’ personal experiences in AP English, their perspectives in achieving success in the class and on the formal exam, and their recollections of the AP English curriculum, and were cross-analyzed for common sources of supports through multiple coding cycles. Findings The young men highlighted six sources of support that were integral to their AP English success. They described three sources of social supports—the wisdom, guidance, and caring that they received from family members, English teachers, and peers—that promoted their success in AP English. In addition, participants identified three types of personal resources—their own college aspirations, persistence in learning academic literacies, and racial consciousness—that inspired and motivated their high scholastic achievement in AP English. Conclusion By mobilizing the rich social supports and personal resources in their lives, African American male students have the resilience, courage, and the intelligence to enroll and succeed in AP English coursework. We suggest that suburban school administrators, school counselors, and teachers use open AP enrollment policies; work closely with and provide pertinent information to African American families; address students’ social emotional concerns; and ensure that AP English pedagogical practices are humanizing to improve the recruitment and retention of African American male students in AP English programs. Finally, we contend that educational scholars and practitioners must continue to engage in research and practice that nurture young African American male students’ social supports and personal resources for AP English success.

New Localism in the Neoliberal Era: Local District Response to Voluntary Open-School Markets in Ohio

Local education governance has allowed neighborhood schools to offer community-oriented curricula and activities, and public schools have been operated to serve only residents’ children within the defined areas. The rise of neoliberalism may, however, undermine political foundations of the traditional political systems. This article explores how self-governed local education authorities function and evolve under neoliberalism by revisiting core values in localism and neoliberalism. By looking into the voluntary open-enrollment policy in Ohio, this study finds that the local governments surrounded by dissimilar neighborhoods are more likely to depend on the mechanism of localism to protect local authorities and locational privileges. This research argues that neoliberal policies safeguard community interests by deeply engaging with interchanging resources across their borders in regional market environments.

Unregulated Open Enrollment and Inequitable Access to Schools of Choice

ABSTRACT In severing the link between residential address and school assignment, school choice policies have the potential to decrease school segregation and increase educational equity. Yet this promise is undermined when school choice creates greater opportunity for those who are already privileged while limiting access to students from historically marginalized groups. This study combines data from a new survey of local open enrollment policies in Metro Detroit, student-level administrative records, and geographic data to critically analyze the local discretion provided in Michigan’s interdistrict school choice policy in relation to the goals of access to schools of choice, desegregation, and educational equity. I found that local school districts implement provisions of state policy in ways that restrict access to Black and economically disadvantaged students while creating pathways of opportunity for others. Districts are incentivized to implement these restrictions because of the inequities built into the state school funding formula and the racialized geography of Metro Detroit that is mechanized in district and county boundaries to restrict access. This study has implications for the regulation of local school choice markets and the role they play in increasing equitable public school opportunities.

Educational supply policies: distortions and labor market performance

Is it always worth implementing an open enrollment policy? And implementing policies that pursue equity in school supply? What is the impact of these two policies on the labor market? Do they produce efficient aggregate outcomes in both the labor and educational markets? This paper theoretically provides answers to these questions by studying the link between distortionary school supply policies and labor market performance. We build a two-sector labor market matching model, where the skilled segment of the economy is composed of workers who differ in the quality of the school they attended. We show the impact of government interventions to eliminate educational supply policy distortions within this theory. We demonstrate that both open enrollment and school equity policies have ambiguous effects on the labor market. Whenever their impact on the measure of workers choosing to become better educated is stronger than the additional school quality gains generated by the policy, the effects on the economy are negative. We also study the central planner solution, emphasizing the existing inefficiencies.

Does open enrollment policy improve academic performance among students involved with child protective service? Findings from Minnesota-linking information for kids

The open enrollment (OE) policy was designated to provide educationally disadvantaged students with equal access to schools with enriched educational resources that enhance student learning. Comparative analysis and linear mixed modeling with propensity score matching were used to identify the extent to which students involved with child protection service (CPS) utilized an inter-district open enrollment option and to examine their academic achievement before and after switching schools. Results indicated that open enrollment provided students involved with CPS better academic resources from neighboring schools that have better academic outcomes. However, students involved with CPS did not have significant improvement on academic performance by utilization of open enrollment. The results suggest that while the intent of the policy led to use the OE option among students involved with CPS, additional support and non-school-based resources may be needed to improve academic achievements.

The high school academy as a laboratory of equity, inclusion, and safety

ABSTRACTBackground and Context: Career academies emphasize learning in specific occupational contexts to enhance the relevance of student experiences. The premise is that the authenticity of occupational contexts provides for opportunities to make learning more meaningful for students.Objective: The purpose of this case study was to examine the school culture of an IT academy.Method: We followed a qualitative, case study design.Findings: We found the academy had a positive school culture, embraced a unique attitude of acceptance for others, and was a safe place for students. The elements of the academy that were associated with a positive school culture included the open enrollment policy, wall-to-wall nature, small size, and student shared interests by focusing on IT as a curricular theme.Implications: Findings of this study highlighted effective approaches (i.e. open enrollment policy, wall-to-wall IT nature, and small size) high school administrators can utilize to develop a positive school culture.

On Becoming a District of Choice: Implications for Equity Along the United States-Mexico Border.

Despite the popularity of open enrollment as a school choice mechanism, there is little research on how principals behave in a district-run competitive setting. This study adds to our understanding of how open enrollment policies affect the role of the principal as well as educational equity by examining the roles and behaviors of school principals in an unregulated marketplace of schools. This study uses an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach. We first analyze school-level transfer data for school year 2014-2015 and demographic data in order to examine trends such as poverty concentration as well as to identify "winners," "losers," and "nonplayers" in the open enrollment marketplace. Since principals are heavily involved in recruitment, student screening, and selection of specialized programs, we interviewed 12 principals to better understand their role in the competitive settings. We find that some schools have emerged as "winners" in this marketplace, attracting large numbers of transfers without losing many students, while other principals and schools struggle to overcome a negative perception and find a market niche to attract students. Our quantitative analysis indicates a relatively small relationship between open enrollment and increased segregation in the district. District oversight seems to have prevented worsening segregation. However, many principals seek more control on the screening process raising equity concerns if formal regulations are not provided. These findings have implications for school and district leaders navigating open enrollment plans as a means to increase enrollments and encourage innovation while also maintaining equity.

The Relationship Between Open Enrollment and School Bond Voting

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify an association between student mobility through open enrollment and voter support for school bond proposals. Specifically, we hypothesized that higher percentages of nonresident enrollment in a school district and resident exit from a district would be associated with lower levels of voter support for bond proposals. Data Collection and Analysis: We utilized publicly available data on bond proposals placed on ballots between 2009 and 2015, publicly available data from the State of Michigan for information on percentages of nonresident enrollment and resident exit, and publicly available data from the U.S. Census Bureau for data on district resident characteristics. Regression analysis was used to identify associations between nonresident enrollment and resident exit with the percentage of “yes” votes on school bond proposals controlling for community and resident characteristics. Findings: We failed to reject the null hypotheses, finding no statistically significant association between nonresident enrollment and resident exit and average voter support for school bond proposals, ceteris paribus. Implications for Research/Practice: We laid some groundwork for reconceptualizing the relationship between open enrollment policies and communities’ willingness to support local public schools. This has potential implications for both local- and state-level policies regarding enrollment issues and issues of school finance. As local boards continue to struggle with budget shortfalls and mounting capital needs, they may need to further weigh their own communities’ interest in supporting local public schools in the wake of increased student mobility in and out of districts.

Civil Rights in New York City: From World War II to the Giuliani Era by Clarence Taylor

Reviewed by: Civil Rights in New York City: From World War II to the Giuliani Era by Clarence Taylor David Lucander Civil Rights in New York City: From World War II to the Giuliani Era. By Clarence Taylor. New York: Fordham University Press, 2011, 282 pages, $18.00 Paper, $65.00 Cloth. As the metropolitan area with the largest African American population in the United States, New York City holds a special place in this country's history of race relations. Indeed, New York City often serves as an entry point for discussions of urban issues such as poverty, gentrification, police brutality, under-performing schools, and the various forms of activism combating these societal ills. Likewise, as the center of artistic production associated with the Harlem Renaissance and the birthplace of hip hop, New York City has long been recognized as the cultural capital of Black America. Somehow, however, New York City's seminal place in the story of the civil rights movement has been largely overlooked. Recent historiography has paid increasing attention to civil rights activism and race relations in the urban north, and this edited volume directs its focus squarely on New York City. As a group, these article-length essays reveal that New York City has been, and is, a center of civil rights activism and should be considered alongside Montgomery and Selma whenever one thinks about the geography of the struggle against racism or the civil rights movement. Edited by Clarence Taylor, professor emeritus at Baruch College, this collection of ten independent chapters is a valuable addition to those studying the history of New York City. Further, scholars exploring the struggle for civil rights in the north, urban history, and general African American history will find Civil Rights in New York City an important contribution to the field. Each of the writers featured is the author of a book-length study about his or her subject. In this regard, Civil Rights in New York City functions as a scholarly mixtape—it is both an entry into more detailed works as well as a streamlined single-volume synopsis of several longer studies. Taylor's introductory essay provides context for the larger events shaping the period covered in this book. He identifies four key aspects of the northern struggle for civil rights: a secular left that included various stripes [End Page 133] of radicals, religious communities, Black Nationalism, and the ethos of Cold War liberalism. The introduction is cogently written and accurately describes the book's contents, but it could be improved with a general discussion about the post-World War II history of New York City or a detailed exploration of the city's racial landscape. Civil Rights in New York City is especially strong in the themes of schools, society, and politics. In a separate essay, Clarence Taylor uncovers the history of radical teachers advancing an anti-racist curriculum during the Roosevelt era and revisits the political debate about school integration during the late 1960s. Daniel Perlstein's article offers a new interpretation of Bayard Rustin's role in the 1968 Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis, while Martha Biondi poignantly writes about how City University's open enrollment policy expanded the Black and Latino middle class. Biondi's article is a standout within this group. She builds on solid but oft-neglected research about open admissions by adding her own oral histories with student activists of that period. The result is a convincing argument about the socially transformative power of higher education and a subtle reminder that working in schools is a way to make a living while making a difference. Mayoral leadership is another recurrent subject in this volume. Jerald Podair writes about Rudolph Giuliani's "One City, One Standard" policy and the rise of aggressive policing tactics that resulted in racially disproportionate use of "stop and frisk" tactics. In Podair's assessment, Giuliani's "race-neutral policy decisions led to race-skewed results" (215) in criminal justice, municipal spending priorities, and poverty relief. Wilbur C. Rich recounts racial conflagrations such as the Red Apple and Crown Heights incidents during the David Dinkins era. Likewise, many of the events discussed in this book directly pertain to...

School choice: understanding the trade-off between travel distance and school quality

Children are traveling longer distances to school, and the share traveling by car is increasing. This paper examines the effects of school attributes on school choice, which in turn gives rise to travel distance and mode choice. It is well known that school quality is capitalized into residential land values. Households willing and able to pay price premiums may choose to live closer to good-quality schools. In contrast, households with less ability to pay are likely to live in places with schools of lower quality. The California public school system has an open enrollment policy, which allows students to transfer out of their neighbourhood school when places are available. When this option is exercised, students may travel longer distances to school compared with students who attend their neighbourhood schools. We used travel diary data from the 2001 Post Census Regional Household Travel Survey to model school destination choices for K-12 students in the Los Angeles region, California. Parents may choose to send their children to neighbourhood schools, other schools within their home district, or out-of-district schools. We find that location, school quality, and other school features influence the probability of a school being chosen, and the extent to which these factors influence choice varies depending on the characteristics of the residential district and the attributes of the household.

Confronting the “Acid Test”: Educators’ Perspectives on Expanding Access to Advanced Placement at a Diverse Florida High School

This study examines educators’ perspectives on accountability mandates designed to expand access to the College Board's Advanced Placement (AP) classes to traditionally underserved students at a diverse suburban high school in Florida, Palm Crest High School. Consistent with Elmore (1979), district and site-based administrators focused on the “forward mapping,” of implementation and identified teacher “gatekeeping” as well as parental expectations as chief barriers to opening up AP enrollment. Teachers, however, found implementation problematic—accountability levers had contradictory provisions and overall neglect nonacademic barriers to college access for low-income African American and Hispanic students. The current value-added model of incorporating student exam performance as a key component of teacher evaluations complicates the advocacy associated with increasing low-SES students’ participation in AP classes as educators strive to maintain high pass rates amid open-enrollment policies. We argue for increased support systems to enhance students’ preparedness for taking college-level courses while in high school, leading to increased college attendance and degree completion.

A spatial model of school district open enrollment choice

We provide an analysis of the determinants of adoption of inter-district open enrollment policies by school districts in Ohio. Legislation passed in 1997 allows Ohio's school districts to adopt one of the following open enrollment options: 1) prohibit enrollment of students from any other school district in the state (no open enrollment), 2) permit enrollment of students from adjacent school districts, or 3) permit enrollment of students from any school district in the state. We employ a recently developed spatial autoregressive lag multinomial logit model to examine the determinants of adoption of each open enrollment alternative. Among the most influential factors are school districts' demographic characteristics, financial factors, and competitive environment. More importantly, the results show evidence of strategic interaction, with a positive correlation in policy choice between neighboring school districts of about 0.4.

Valuing School Quality via a School Choice Reform

AbstractAmong policymakers, educators, and economists, there remains a strong debate on the extent to which good schools matter. In this paper, we estimate school quality valuations based upon house prices, by considering a policy reform regarding pupils' choices to attend high school. We exploit a change in school choice that occurred in Oslo county in 1997, where school authorities altered policy from one based on catchment zones to an open enrollment policy that allowed pupils to apply to any high school. Our estimates show that parents substantially value better performing schools because the sensitivity of housing valuations to school performance falls significantly (by over 50 percent) following the school choice reform that made the move to open enrollment.

Payment reform and changes in health care in China

This paper is intended to assess the primary effects on cost, utilization and quality of care from payment reform of capitation and open enrollment in Changde city, Hunan Province of China. Open enrollment policy was introduced to deal with possible cream skimming associated with capitation. Based on the longitudinal Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance (URBMI) Household Survey, this study analyses the URBMI data through a set of regression models. The original data included over five thousand inpatient admissions during the study period between 2008 and 2010. The study finds the payment reform to reduce its inpatient out-of-pocket cost by 19.7%, out-of-pocket ratio by 9.5%, and length of stay by 17.7%. However, the total inpatient cost, drug cost ratio, treatment effect, and patient satisfaction showed little difference between Fee-For-Service and capitation models. We conclude that the payment reform in Changde did not reduce overall inpatient expenditure, but it decreased the financial risk and length of stay of inpatient patients without compromising quality of care. The findings would contribute to the health care payment literatures from developing countries and open further research tracks on the ability of open enrollment to compensate for capitation drawbacks.

Seeking to Expand Middle Level Success to All Students: A Not-So-Secret Recipe

The author shares how a charter school in Denver, Colorado, utilizes the middle school philosophy and middle level practices as responsive practice to promote academic, emotional, and social growth.The recipe for success of Strive Preparatory Charter School (formerly West Denver Preparatory Charter School) is not a secret. This summer program, turned four-campus, middle level phenomenon, is proving to satisfy the appetite of parents hungry for a change in their children's educational opportunities. The intent of this article is to share a set of simple, effective, and replicable practices used to defy the traditionally low odds of success for often-underserved student populations. Strive Prep teachers and administrators are successfully motivating, educating, and preparing students for present and future challenges through school culture building and implementation of specific structures for both people and time. In addition, practices that prevent discipline problems, as well as interventions when prevention is not enough, are integral to Strive Prep's effectiveness.Colorado measures annual academic growth based on the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) data as part of the Colorado Growth Model. The Harvey Park Campus of Strive Prep (SP) was determined to have made the most academic growth among all public secondary schools in the state in 2010. The Federal Campus came in second, giving Strive Prep the top two public schools statewide for academic growth. Denver Public Schools review schools annually through a comprehensive school performance framework based on CSAP scores, community satisfaction, parent involvement, and other indicators. The performance of the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders at the two SP middle schools speaks for itself. Based on the school performance framework, in 2010 the Harvey Park Campus was ranked first among the 132 schools evaluated across grade levels, with the Federal Campus second among secondary schools and fourth overall. These are remarkable achievements in any light but particularly so, given the comparison of student population poverty rates shown in Figure 1.When asked what factors contribute to Strive Prep's success, CEO and founder Chris Gibbons stated:Three factors, when working in concert, bring about success for our students: culture, structure, and talent. A culture of achievement and engagement throughout the organization, a structured learning environment that lets teachers teach and kids learn, and a strong pathway to attract and develop teacher talent as we professionalize the teaching craft... these interdependent factors equal success.To truly appreciate how far these students have come, you must be aware of who they are. Students enrolled in the Strive Prep system hardly fit the stereotypical idea of prep students. About 90% receive free or reduced-price lunches and the majority of students begin their experience at SP one to three grade levels behind in reading or math or both. The student population is 96% minority, with 40% of those English language learners. SP has a free, open-enrollment policy that accepts students without review of previous grades, test scores, academic progress, or behavior history. Freely accepting all students is part of Gibbons' mission. I'm a Denver native and have worked in or around Southwest Denver for most of the past 15 years. It's a community with great passion around education and a real need for high-performing options that are serious about preparing students for a four-year university.How Strive Prep beganIn 2001, Gibbons became the director of Denver Summerbridge, the program now known as Breakthrough Kent Denver, a teaching and tutoring program to help close the educational gap that often occurs among all students during the summer months but is more pronounced among student populations similar to those who now attend SP (David, 2010). While more privileged students may receive private tutoring, go on family vacations, or attend camps in June, July, and August, many SP students spend their summers watching siblings, taking care of the home, or even working to help support the family. …

Fertile Ground: The Future of Higher Education in the Arab World

In some respects, on the morrow of the Arab Spring of 2011, the future of higher education in the Arab world could not be brighter—though perhaps only because the present is so dim. Decades of authoritarian rule, with its debilitating limitations on academic freedom, underinvestment in public institutions, and populist open enrollment policies all contributed to weakening the quality of the research universities in the region. The more recent appearance of investment in vanity projects--including branch campuses of US universities--on the part of both governments and private investors, is further complicating the economics of higher education in the region, creating perverse patterns in faculty salaries and student tuitions without producing substantial research or education of any quality. That said, the appearance of even moderately more open, accountable, and transparent regimes will provide significant opportunities for innovation in the Arab world.

Table of Contents

Abstract Cover Story Know where to find answers to overseas accommodation questions Find help accommodating students with disabilities who want to go overseas Know where to look for money for costly overseas accommodations Prepare students to deal with the unexpected A Brief Conversation with … Dave Tucker Assistive technology eliminates need for written notes Of Counsel Balance open‐enrollment policies with student realities, program requirements Policies & Procedures Ensure disability‐related procedures are clear, well publicized Compliance Consider students' requests for accommodations in all institutional programs, activities Understand your duty to students with psychiatric disabilities Managing Your Office Don't set new staff members up for failure with labeling Etc. Understand your obligations to students who have intellectual disabilities UNIVERSAL DESIGN Quick tips for creating accessibility for all Give students strategies to organize their lives BEYOND ACCOMMODATION Prepare students for life after college by fostering self‐advocacy skills Legal Roundup Know these key OCR rulings to ensure compliance ACCOMMODATION Blind law grad gets chance to take bar exam with JAWS® Court orders NCBE to provide computer‐based exam PERSONNEL Employee's testimony defeats disability claim QUICK STUDY

Interview with Jessy Keiser

Jessy Keiser is an organization development professional whose career path lead her to teach for the University of Phoenix, the for-profit learning institution best known for its online presence and open-enrollment policy. In this interview, she spoke about how she came to teach at Phoenix, what kind of training and assessment was required, and some of the pros and cons of its system.