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Executive Summary

Open enrollment is a form of school choice that gives families the opportunity to choose an educational setting or school within the public school system that is best for their children. In U.S. public school districts, students typically must attend the school that is in their neighborhood and often do not have a choice of attending a different school if there is not an open enrollment option. Open enrollment options, however, vary by state and region.

Open enrollment can be either intra-district or interdistrict. Intra-district open enrollment allows students to transfer to another school within their resident district. Inter-district open enrollment allows students to transfer to another public school district, even if they live outside the choice district’s attendance boundaries. Some states, like Florida and Arizona, require mandatory intra- and inter-district open enrollment program participation for all public-school districts. Others, like Indiana and Ohio, have more restrictive policies that allow districts the option to either provide or refuse opportunities for out-of-district open enrollment.

As these policies are adopted by more states, they have become increasingly popular with parents. Therefore, it is important to understand the impacts of interdistrict choice on schools and students. As such, EdChoice partnered with Hanover Research (Hanover) to conduct a series of research projects around interdistrict open enrollment and present implications for various stakeholders. The following capstone project summarizes the series of projects aimed to address the following research questions:

Public school enrollment in the US has been steadily drifting away from assigned public schools. States began allowing families to choose schools, including outside of the district in which they live, in the late 1980s and charter schools began opening in the early 1990s. These options, along with existing magnet schools and, more recently, virtual schools now enroll more than one in ten public school students. The COVID-19 pandemic led to dramatically more families switching schools, including to private and homeschooling.

Families and students most often choose open enrollment based on the academic programming and school culture. Specialized academic programming can provide new opportunities for students to follow their passions and interests, and many participants in the study highlight the importance of giving students a sense of agency and ownership over their own educational path. Other common reasons for open enrollment transfers include district proximity to parents’ workplace, athletic programs, and various school climate aspects.

School district administrators who were interviewed for this project feel competitive pressure from open enrollment and often referenced the need to “retain market share” through attracting students from nearby counties (e.g., from other public-school districts, charter schools, private schools). The heightened awareness has caused many school-sites to create new or enhance existing programs in order to increase and retain enrollment. Subsequently, districts and schools consistently demonstrated a strong utilization of marketing and communication strategies as they seek to market themselves and each school’s unique programs to families within and beyond district boundaries.

At the same time, open enrollment policies have the potential to change community ties and neighborhoodschool identities. Neighborhood schools which offer specialized programs run the risk of attracting so many choice students that the school may have to operate as exclusively specialized to meet the demand. Additionally, some participants in Hanover’s qualitative study highlight instances in which families leverage open enrollment to avoid conf lict resolution and relationship-building with school staff when students face social-emotional or disciplinary concerns.

Managing open enrollment requires a comprehensive district approach of data tracking, forward-planning, and marketing. Participants from Hanover’s qualitative study explain the delicate balance districts must strike between accepting new out-of-district transfers and managing intra-district school choice transfers. Districts regulate inter- and intra-district enrollment mainly based on classroom capacity (i.e., available
seats), and they will often use a lottery system that prioritizes certain tiers of applicants, such as in-district residency, on-site school employment, scholarship opportunities, or sibling choice school enrollment. From the perspective of students, open enrollment policies should make it easy for those who wish to transfer to do
so.

In terms of challenges with current open enrollment policies, transportation is one of the greatest barriers that students face in exercising open enrollment opportunities. None of the state policies analyzed in Hanover’s benchmarking report mandate that receiving districts provide transportation to open enrolled students; instead, it is the responsibility of the parent/guardian. Some exceptions may exist in certain states for students from special populations, including students with disabilities or experiencing homelessness. However, Florida, Arizona, and Ohio state policies do reference various instances where a district can choose to offer transportation (e.g., along a regularly-scheduled bus route).

As such, available transportation highly influences student school choice options. The lack of access to transportation can disproportionately affect students from low-income families and ultimately prevent students from exercising their school choice. Understanding the limitations of fully transporting students from outside the district boundaries, districts can establish various, conveniently located satellite bus stops to encourage out-of-district families to enroll and to further increase the diversity within the district’s student population. Particularly with new work-from-home opportunities for working parents, more families may seek out districts that offer nearby transportation services for open enrollment transfers. Moving forward, state policy leaders may wish to consider requiring transportation provisions within all state open enrollment policies to increase overall open enrollment participation and thus increase student access to educational opportunities.

While open enrollment can cause certain issues of equity and access for all states in this report, states with voluntary inter-district open enrollment tend to struggle most. Districts have more discretion to shape their student enrollment and demographics by choosing to accept or deny student transfers. For example, both Ohio and Indiana districts have a documented history and public perception of “cherry-picking” students they accept to maintain a high-achieving student body. State policy leaders should therefore establish more inclusive practices within inter-district policies. Creating provisions that allow more students—particularly those who would benefit from attending a higher-performing school—access to nearby open enrollment opportunities may reduce the current socioeconomic and racial inequities found in states with voluntary inter-district policies.

Notably, a lack of consensus characterizes the research literature on open enrollment. Studies draw different conclusions in terms of the characteristics of participating students, the impact on student academic and behavioral outcomes, the impact on parental involvement, and the impact on school quality. Areas in which consensus exist include tendencies for (1) students to transfer from poorly resourced, low performing schools to well-resourced, high-performing schools and (2) students and parents to express high rates of satisfaction with their new school. Differing conclusions in other areas may reflect underlying differences in the nature of the open enrollment policies in the districts and schools examined (i.e., inter-district and/or intra-district transfers, mandatory or voluntary district participation, rights of refusal, etc.), as well as differences in how students get assigned to their default schools.

Researchers may seek to address several gaps in the literature moving forward. A first step could be to analyze national and state data to further understand the impacts of open enrollment on and the potential connection to student achievement. Through data analysis, the potential correlation between open enrollment and student achievement can be explored. The findings of such research could expand the current literature on open enrollment and school choice. Additionally, researchers should consider conducting a review of policies to identify enrollment patterns among various student demographics. Current research remains mixed over the impact of open enrollment on students of color or from low-income families; some studies find open enrollment expands access to high quality education, while others find the opposite. Identifying patterns in the policies that foster greater inclusion and acceptance will help inform future initiatives in open enrollment policies.

Introduction

In the last forty years, there has been a gradual, but steady, shift in public education towards letting parents choose their child’s public school rather than assigning each child to one school based on their address. Although magnet schools and other desegregation efforts began moving students outside of their assigned public schools in the 1960’s, the idea of letting parents decide which school is best for their families didn’t start to take hold until the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when charter schools and open enrollment came on the scene.

Multiple forces are now converging that are likely to speed up the decline of address-based assignment to a single public school. First, most public-school students– whether they realize it or not – already have access to at least one option other than the school to which they are assigned based on their address.1 Second, participation, public support, and innovation in school choice programs continues to grow.2 Third, children who attended a school of their choosing grow up to be parents who expect to be able to do the same. Thirty years of public-school choice programs have made that a reality. Finally, there was the COVID-19 pandemic, which left so many parents so unhappy. Families moved from their assigned public school to charter schools, to private schools, to micro schools and to homeschooling in record numbers.

This paper focuses on just one type of choice for families–choosing any public school that has a program they desire and acceptable transportation access, also known as open enrollment. In 1988, the Minnesota legislature passed, and Governor Rudy Perpich signed, the first ever statewide open enrollment bill. Minnesota families were given the option of enrolling in any public school in the state, regardless of their address.3 Participating students would carry $3,600 in state funding (equivalent to $9,000 in 2022) to the public school of their choice. The Governor’s education adviser, Joe Nathan, predicted that at least 10 percent of Minnesota children would be crossing district lines within a few years.4

Nearly 35 years later, 43 states have similar laws, often referred to as inter-district choice, on their books.5 In 24 of those states, allowing students to choose a school outside of their home district is mandatory, at least in some cases or for some groups of students. In the other states, districts can decide if they want to participate or not. Inter-district choice is expressly prohibited only in Illinois and North Carolina. In Alabama, Alaska, Maryland, and Virginia there is no mention of interdistrict choice in the statutes. And, in Hawaii and the District of Columbia, the concept is not applicable, as they each only have a single district. In all, 86 percent of public students in the US live in states with interdistrict choice programs and 41 percent live in states where its offering is mandatory.6

In addition to inter-district choice, many school districts in the US allow (in some cases require) families to choose any school from within the district in which they reside that offers the grade their child needs, also known as intra-district choice. Twenty-one states require districts to offer intra-district choice and seven more have laws that make participation by districts voluntary. In many large, urban districts unified enrollment systems, sometimes referred to as open choice, are becoming increasingly popular. These intradistrict choice programs require families to complete applications that list their school preferences in order. Typically, unified enrollment systems have a common website, a common application, and a common deadline. Every family in the district must submit their top choice(s) and an algorithm creates a best match between parent choices and seat availability.

EdChoice is committed to understanding the impact of these open enrollment policies. This paper will describe trends in elementary and secondary enrollment and financing and how those trends interact with open enrollment in the US. We will then describe the open enrollment landscape at both the state and district level. We will then review the available literature on the participation and impact these policies have on students and school systems, followed by detailed case studies of inter-district choice programs in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, and Ohio to understand and gain insight on the processes and perceptions of administrators in the state. Finally, policy implications for improving access to and the impact of opening district boundaries will be summarized.

State Open Enrollment Policies

As was previously mentioned, some states require every district to participate in open enrollment, usually given a set of conditions, while other make it voluntary. Appendix A outlines the policies for inter-district and intra-district choice in each state.

Of the 24 states in which inter-district choice is mandatory, some, like Arizona, have very parent friendly policies. Schools must post their open seats available on their website and the numbers must be updated every 12 weeks. This proactive approach eliminates the possibility of districts using capacity as a reason to deny a transfer request after the fact. On the other end of the spectrum, many states allow districts to accept or reject transfer students for “specified regulations, requirements, and adopted standards,” leaving the door wide open for cherry picking students. A recent report by the Reason Foundation delineates open enrollment best practices and grades each state accordingly.24 According to this report, only 11 states have open enrollment laws that allow students to easily transfer. And while capacity can be a limiting factor even in mandatory states, it should be noted that capacity is not a limiting factor for students who move to the district.

Arkansas, California, Louisiana, and New Mexico mandate that students in low-performing, in some cases “F,” schools may transfer to a higher performing school in another district. However, in California, these students can be rejected for program, class, grade, or building capacity or if it would have an adverse financial impact. Mississippi, Missouri, and Montana have geographical restrictions in the open enrollment policies. For example, in Montana, a student is allowed to transfer out of district if they live closer to the school of their choice in the receiving district and at least 3 miles from their assigned public school or if there are geographic conditions between a student’s house and their assigned school which make transportation impractical. In Maine and Vermont only high school students can participate in the program and in Maine only if their home high school doesn’t offer at least two foreign language courses.

While intra-district choice policies in most states mirror their inter-district choice plans, a growing number of large urban districts are completely eliminating attendance zones in favor of unified enrollment systems.25 In these districts, parents complete an online application listing of their top school choices and students are assigned based on a computer algorithm. The benefit to these systems is that parents don’t have to identify and then apply to a school, or schools, of their choice. In some cases, such as Denver, CO and Camden, NJ, parents have the option of enrolling their child in their neighborhood school rather than filling out the unified enrollment application. In others, such as New Orleans, LA, all families must submit an application. Regardless, when properly designed, unified enrollment systems can empower all parents to be invested in where their children are educated.

What Research Says

There isn’t a strong body of research regarding the academic impact of open enrollment policies, which likely reflects the underlying differences in the nature of the open enrollment policies in the districts and schools examined (i.e., inter-district and/or intradistrict transfers, mandatory or voluntary district participation, rights of refusal, etc.), as well as differences in how students get assigned to their default schools. However, in the 30 years since they were first introduced conclusions have been reached about aspects of the policies.

Who Participates in Open Enrollment?

To a certain extent, parents with the means to do so can simply move to their neighborhood school of choice. In fact, in the 2019 National Household Education Survey NHES), one in five parents reported that they had done just that.26 Not surprisingly, participation in open enrollment programs is more likely for those who may have more limited resources or residential options. Research on programs across multiple states confirms this.

A 2015 study of the Michigan Schools of Choice (SoC) program found that historically disadvantaged students, in this case low-income and African American students, were the most likely to request an interdistrict transfer.27 A second Michigan study found the same, but also identified participating students as lower performing on state exams.28 Early studies of Minnesota’s open enrollment program found that students were more likely to transfer from urban to suburban districts and from low-income to higherincome districts.29 Minnesota’s rural districts were also more likely to experience a net gain of open enrollment students. An analysis of Wisconsin’s open enrollment program, which served over 70,000 students in 2021, found that with low-income districts experience the highest rates of outmigration. 30

How Do Families Choose an Open Enrollment School?

No surprisingly, most parents cite school quality as their primary reason for choosing to send their child to a public school other than the one assigned to them based on their address.31 This is followed closely by school safety and school environment. Beyond that, families cite proximity to work, home or day care as reasons to request a transfer.

What Is the Impact of Open Enrollment on Participating Students and Families?

The results of studies examining open enrollment’s effects on student outcomes also differ; for example, some studies detect evidence of higher academic achievement, while other studies find academic achievement unchanged or even lower.32 However, studies examining the impact of open enrollment on parents typically find increased satisfaction with their child’s new school except with respect to transportation.33 Many parents note the difficulty of their child’s transport to and from their new school. Regarding parent involvement in their child’s education following their transfer, some studies detect an increase, some studies find no effect, and other studies find mixed effects (e.g., some forms of involvement increase whereas others decrease or remain unchanged).34

What is the Impact of Open Enrollment on Participating Districts?

A common concern with open enrollment policies is that allowing students to leave low-performing schools will lead to greater racial and economic segregation. Some studies have found that, indeed, open enrollment can result in greater stratification by socioeconomic status and racial balance across schools.35 However, a 2021 study of open enrollment in Wisconsin found that open enrollment can actually increase diversity in the receiving schools and districts.36

Some surveys and interviews indicate that administrators perceive positive changes in curriculum and instruction, educational programming, etc., as schools aim to become more competitive in the ‘educational marketplace’ created by open enrollment.37 Others find that administrators see no such effects.38

Open enrollment also creates a financial impact. Sending districts lose funding (and the student) and receiving districts gain funding (and the student). However, a well-designed program can ensure that these transfers of dollars don’t create disincentives for districts to participate.

State Case Studies

We now turn to an up-close look at four states’ inter-district open enrollment practices, focusing on state policies, public perception, and impacts on students’ educational experiences. Arizona and Florida are known for their willingness to trust parents to choose how their children are educated.39 Indiana and Ohio have been making inroads towards this goal.

Arizona

State Policy

Arizona state law mandates both intra-district and inter-district open enrollment. In 1994, the Arizona State Legislature first passed the Arizona Revised Statute §15-816, which allowed students the opportunity to attend a school outside their neighborhood district boundaries without paying tuition.40 Districts are allowed to enter into voluntary agreements for tuition payments with other educational institutions. This law also coincided with the allowance of charter school operation.41

Districts are responsible for establishing their own “admission criteria, application procedures, and transportation provisions.”42 These procedures must be developed and adopted by each district’s governing board. However, Arizona state law outlines certain requirements and guidelines for accepting student enrollment. For example, Arizona requires that all districts reserve capacity for students within the district boundaries (i.e., “resident pupils”), students returning to the school from the previous year, and siblings of students already enrolled.43 Districts may also give enrollment preference to and/or reserve capacity for
students who meet the following criteria:44

Beyond these criteria, districts must accept all applications based on school capacity (i.e., classroom seats, staff availability). Districts must consistently and clearly update their current open enrollment status, including which schools and/or grade levels are accepting open enrollment students and which are at capacity. The district must then follow an “equitable selection process,” such as a lottery system, to select students from open enrollment applications.45

Violations of open enrollment laws include:46

Despite these efforts to create fair and equitable open enrollment processes, some gaps in district practices exist. Only recently did the Arizona State Senate introduce legislation to prohibit open enrollment discrimination toward students with disabilities.47 Several news articles by Arizona parents outline the
various open enrollment decisions their children have received; for example, one child without disabilities was
admitted to their choice school, but their sibling with disabilities was denied admission based on “program
capacity.”48 Now with the recent Arizona State Senate bill (S.B. 1685), districts may not ask parents to disclose
their students’ IEP status when applying for open enrollment.49

According to state law (Arizona Revised Statute §15-816.01), the Arizona Department of Education should provide reports of open enrollment transfer rates across the state:

“The department of education shall provide an annual report that informs the public and policymakers of the open enrollment participation rate by school district, school and county, including the number of pupils, by student subgroup designation, in each school and school district that are open enrolled as resident pupils, resident transfer pupils or nonresident pupils for each school district and the school districts and zip codes from which students are enrolling. By fiscal year 2022-2023, this participation report shall also include the number of pupils enrolled in charter schools and the school districts from which those pupils are enrolling.” 50

However, report card data from the Arizona Department of Education indicates that neither the state nor individual districts consistently report student open enrollment transfers.51 Several articles also state that, historically, the state has not tracked the number of families who participate in open enrollment and individual districts have not been required to track every student within their district boundaries.52 However, some districts may choose to track open enrollment transfers to better understand enrollment patterns.

Public Perception

Because Arizona has implemented open enrollment policies for almost three decades, various challenges and benefits have been identified over time. Advocates for open enrollment often cite the programmatic improvements schools and districts will often undergo in order to attract and retain students.53 The increase in competition in turn affects districts’ accountability to provide innovative and strong educational opportunities for students. For example, districts often create specialty academic programs— “magnet programs” or schools—that support a certain academic subject or career pathway. Magnet schools can become schools of choice for students both within the district boundaries and outside, and the success of one program can often lead districts to create additional ones.

Choosing schools that best meet each students’ needs improves overall parent and student satisfaction. In fact, according to research from the Center for Education Reform (CER)—a school-choice advocate—Arizona ranks second in the nation for parent perceptions around school choice and innovation.57 This school choice not only pertains to academic opportunities, but also to family situations. Particularly due to rapidly changing population settlements and housing markets, a recent news article highlights how people who move to or within Arizona tend to have positive perceptions of open enrollment because they can live in an area they can afford, but still send their student to their district of choice.58

Students also pursue open enrollment transfers for both academic and non-academic opportunities. While Arizona open enrollment policies pertain only to academics, students may apply to schools to gain increased athletic or extracurricular opportunities. One news article examines the benefits a high-school football player received after transferring to a larger district with more opportunities to be scouted by college football coaches.59 However, the Arizona Interscholastic Association has introduced new policies to limit the number of students who use open enrollment to pursue new opportunities just for athletics, particularly as the state law prohibits districts from basing open enrollment admissions upon athletic ability. Since 2016- 2017, student-athletes who transfer to a new school must sit out at least 50 percent of an athletic season.60

While open enrollment proponents often speak of the equitable access to highly ranked schools, critics often take issue with this interpretation for a few reasons. As discussed in the earlier subsection, parents in Arizona have experienced perceived discrimination from districts denying their students’ open enrollment application due to their disability. Additionally, critics may take issue with using school or district rankings to choose open enrollment opportunities. For instance, the U.S. News and World Report rankings of elementary schools in Arizona “almost exclusively” use standardized tests to measure math and English/ language arts achievement at a school. However, rankings that rely on test scores may not adjust for important factors, such as student poverty or diversity. In essence, if parent and student open enrollment choice is based primarily on school rankings and test scores, more students may be directed towards wealthier districts. Over time, this could have profound effects on lower-income communities and their districts.61

As Hanover discovered during its qualitative in-depth interview study, open enrollment may also affect the sense of communities within a district. One Arizona community member highlights the difficulties his district experiences with boosting morale at sporting events, because many of the athletes on the team are from different towns or cities.62

Impact on Educational Experiences of Students

Given the statewide mandate allowing multiple forms of school choice through open enrollment, all students in Arizona are affected by open enrollment in some way. While the number of students participating in open enrollment across the state is not publicly available, several sources indicate the rate of open enrollment at local levels. For example, a 2017 study analyzed the open enrollment rates within Maricopa County, which contains the Phoenix metropolitan area. When excluding public charter school enrollment, the Center for Student Achievement found that about 37 percent of students in the area participated in open enrollment (including inter- and intra-district).63 Indeed, when analyzing the percentages of open enrollment participation across the study’s nine attendance zones, results ranged from 15 percent to 57 percent of students.

Because school choice has become an established practice within the state of Arizona, it is necessary for schools and districts to market themselves to retain current students and attract new students. Additionally, families must take opportunities to “shop” around for the best educational institution that fits their students’ needs. Students must consider several aspects of a given school’s educational experience when choosing to enroll. The Arizona Charter Schools Association created the following “Parent Guide to School Choice,” which has been reproduced in Figure 3 below.

Florida

State Policy

Like Arizona, Florida mandates offerings of interdistrict and intra-district open enrollment.64 All school districts—and charter schools—must develop and adopt a “controlled open enrollment plan” that allows students the opportunity to enroll in the school of their choice, regardless of typical attendance boundaries.65 Controlled open enrollment opportunities depend on the available capacity (e.g., class size) at receiving schools and typically accept applications using a lottery system. Districts and charter schools must define their capacity determinations and clearly post them on their respective websites.66 Receiving districts are not required to provide transportation to any open enrolled students, but they may if they so choose.67

Notably, the Florida Legislature recently updated its controlled open enrollment laws. Beginning in 2017,
inter-district and intra-district open enrollment shifted from being voluntary to mandatory for school districts and charter schools.68 The new legislation also created enrollment priority lists districts need to follow when accepting open enrollment applications. These enrollment priorities, listed below, outline the four student groups who must be given “preferential treatment” by the receiving district:69

Districts also must address several aspects of the open enrollment process and adopt board-approved policies in line with state law. For example, students who attend a new school based on open enrollment will be eligible to remain in the school up to the highest grade level offered. The following bullet points list the additional priorities the state requires districts to consider:70

According to the new legislation, the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) requires districts to report the number of students utilizing controlled open enrollment and school choice; however, this data is not publicly available on FDOE’s website. In 2019, a news source found that only 48 of the 75 districts consistently reported  their student open enrollment data over last three years.71

Public Perception

Similar to Arizona, Florida ranks highly among school choice advocates. In fact, according to the CER Parent Power Index, Florida is the top-ranked state in the county for school choice opportunities, primarily due to its strong charter school and open enrollment laws.72

Some districts may be opposed to controlled open enrollment, however, based on financial and student performance impacts.73 While each district receives local funding based on the students residing within its attendance boundaries, it will not receive additional local funding for any transfer students it accepts. As Hanover discovered in its qualitative study on open enrollment, communities may perceive non-resident students as utilizing district resources without paying for them through county taxes. At the same time, these districts will benefit from enrolling additional students because they will receive more state funding based on their increased student enrollment count. On the other hand, districts who lose resident students to nearby districts and have a net negative enrollment rate may also oppose controlled open enrollment because they receive less state funding; these districts tend to be smaller and lower performing.74

Districts may also take advantage of the discretion given in the open enrollment laws around setting school capacity limits to protect “more desirable” schools. For example, while most Florida districts in Hanover’s qualitative study set capacity limits between 90-95 percent, some districts in the state set capacity much lower at 75 percent.75 While the capacity limits can be developed for a number of reasons, lower limits do necessarily restrict access for non-resident students seeking to utilize open enrollment transfer opportunities.76

Impact on Educational Experiences of Students

Given the relatively recent statewide mandate of open enrollment, research and data about the impacts of open enrollment on students’ educational experiences remain limited. However, a few sources reveal emerging trends of student enrollment patterns. For example, students generally transfer to high-achieving districts and schools. In one report, more than 90 percent of students in 2018 who utilized inter-district open enrollment
transferred to “A” or “B” rated school districts.77 While not directly related to open enrollment, Florida
does offer several scholarship opportunities that expand the school choice abilities of its students. Figure 4 describes the six school-choice scholarship programs Florida currently provides:

Indiana

Note: Indiana uses alternate terms to describe various aspects of the enrollment process. Indiana tends to refer to open enrollment as transfer agreements, school districts as corporations, and home residences as legal settlement.78

State Policy

Indiana has more complex open enrollment laws than most other states benchmarked in this report. Inter-district and intra-district open enrollment is mostly voluntary across the state. The exception is Indianapolis Public Schools, which is required to accept both inter-district and intra-district transfers.79 While it is not mandatory for districts to adopt a policy either accepting or rejecting open enrollment students, any district without a set policy would be required to accept students who meet certain enrollment criteria and apply for a transfer. If a school district does decide to accept inter-district open enrollment transfers and establish a policy, the district must establish and clearly publish the number of transfer students it will accept.80

All inter-district transfer requests are valid for only one school year; students must apply for an out-of-district transfer every year.81 Students who wish to apply for inter-district open enrollment transfers have several
criteria to meet before their application is accepted by a receiving district. First and foremost, parents must send in a written request to the choice district asking for their student’s transfer to be accepted. Whether the transfer request is accommodated or not is up to the receiving district and its established capacity policies; the sending district (i.e., home district) does not have to “approve” the transfer.82 The acceptable reasons for an open enrollment transfer request include:83

Indiana also outlines several priority enrollment criteria that participating and non-participating districts must accommodate. Districts may not deny enrollment based on academics or disability status, but they can deny or revoke enrollment to a student who has been suspended or expelled. For voluntary interdistrict open enrollment, children of school personnel and siblings of a current student should be given priority acceptance to a choice district, if capacity allows. Even districts that do not typically accept open enrollment transfers must accept students who meet all of the following criteria:86

As noted above, these voluntary policies apply to all districts in the state except for Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS). Historical records explaining the reasoning behind this stipulation are limited; however, school choice reforms specifically related to IPS improvement efforts first occurred between 1993 and 1995.87 Currently, IPS has extensive intra-district choice opportunities as well as priority criteria (e.g., proximity to a choice school) during the enrollment lottery process.88 IPS follows the same inter-district enrollment criteria listed above.

 

Indiana mandates all school districts to report the number of inter-district student transfers every fall and spring semester.89 Each school district reports the total number of state-funded students residing within its boundaries, also known as “students with legal settlement.” Then, the district also reports the number of students who transferred into or out of their district. These transfers can be identified as “public” or “nonpublic” transfers; public transfers include parent choice through open enrollment or charter school enrollment, while non-public transfers include Indiana’s voucher program, called the Choice Scholarship.90 Table 2 below provides an example of a standard Transfer Report.

Notably, according to the Indiana General Assembly, districts have the option of charging out-of-district families tuition. Indiana’s tuition policy varies significantly from all other states benchmarked in this
report:

“When the transferee school elects to charge tuition to the requesting parents or student, the tuition determined under subsection (b) must be paid by the parents or the student before the end of the school year in installments as determined by the transferee corporation…If the transferee school elects not to charge transfer tuition to the parents or student under this section, the transferee school may not charge transfer tuition or fees to the transferor school.”91

Public Perception

Particularly over the last decade, Indiana has made several improvements to its open enrollment policies. For instance, in 2013, Indiana passed an update to its open enrollment law (IC 20-26-11-32) that prohibited districts and schools from using certain admissions criteria to accept or deny student transfer applications.92 Districts now are not able to use academic performance, test scores, most disciplinary records, disability, or any other factor besides capacity as a basis for admission. Severe student discipline infractions (i.e., consecutive suspensions, expulsions, unexcused absences) can still be used.93 In the wake of the new law, several districts decided to stop allowing open enrollment transfers, citing the loss of local control.94 However, educator and student reports of these very districts “cherry-picking” their students in the name of local control prompted Indiana lawmakers to create the law and expand school choice access in the first place.95

The state of open enrollment in Indiana several years ago was often one of decentralization and ambiguity. A
2015 qualitative study of IPS found significant barriers exist for parents wishing to utilize open enrollment at the district.96 Chief among the barriers are a lack of transparency and communication regarding district policies, and parent frustration over not being aware of opportunities to transfer their children to alternate schools outside their assigned school. Additionally, the study found evidence of both covert and overt “screening” practices, wherein some IPS magnet schools and charter schools set strict admission criteria (e.g., admissions test, online application) or even delivered suspensions or expulsions to “hard-to-educate” students in order to shape the school’s student body.97 However, the open enrollment process at IPS is now completely centralized online with greater transparency around lotteries, priority criteria, waiting lists, and application timelines.98

Impact on Educational Experiences of Students

While Indiana allows districts to voluntarily opt in or out of accepting out-of-district transfers, virtually all
districts are affected by open enrollment in some way. For example, even if a district does not accept transfer students, students from within the district may take open enrollment opportunities at a nearby district, thus affecting the home district.

Additionally, participation in inter-district open enrollment dramatically increased after 2008 when Indiana mostly eliminated local property taxes as a source of the general fund education revenue.99 One report finds that inter-district open enrollment increased from 3,000 students in 2009 to more than 11,000 two years later.100 According to the most recent Transfer Report from the Indiana Department of Education from the fall of 2021, over 105,000 students across the state utilized open enrollment to transfer into or out of public school districts.101 In other words, over 9 percent of the 1.03 million public school students enrolled in Indiana have utilized open enrollment, a marked increase from previous years.102

Ohio

State Policy

Similar to Indiana, inter-district open enrollment is mostly voluntary across the state of Ohio.103 However, Ohio mandates inter-district and intra-district open enrollment for students attending alternative schools.104 Ohio requires all districts to develop inter-district and intra-district open enrollment policies; however, the voluntary aspect of the law allows districts the choice of adopting varying levels of open enrollment acceptance. Districts can choose from the following inter-district open enrollment policies:105

All students who enroll under an open enrollment policy will not pay tuition fees.106 If a district does participate in inter-district open enrollment, its board must adopt further polices for admitting students and notifying families of the application process. These policies include establishing capacity limits and priority application criteria (e.g., resident students). Districts can establish their own capacity limits based on various factors, including grade level, school building, and education programs.107 The state, however, outlines specific priority criteria for districts to follow when accepting open enrollment students: resident students and previously-enrolled students will have priority acceptance over first-time applicants, and districts may deny enrollment to students “who have been suspended or expelled by the sending district for 10 consecutive days or more in the current or proceeding term.”108

Districts may not adopt policies that limit admission based on academic or extracurricular ability, proficiency in the English language, or disability. However, students with disabilities may be required to attend a different district school than the student applied for based on where appropriate services are provided within the receiving district.109 If a receiving district is unable to meet the needs of a student, then the student’s original “home” district remains responsible for providing services, either through physical services or funding the receiving district to provide the services.110

Notably, Ohio also requires all enrollment districts to establish procedures that “ensure that appropriate racial balance is maintained” in schools.111 The state law, however, does not indicate the specifications of a racial balance or imbalance, leaving room for wide interpretation.112 Districts who have voluntary procedures can limit open enrollment based on this provision; in this way, districts can also “object” to any of their students who apply for open enrollment in another district.113 According to one district’s board policy, objecting to a student’s open enrollment choice will allow the district to keep the student’s allocated state funding, even if the student attends a different district.114 More discussion on desegregation efforts and open enrollment is located later in this section.

Ohio requires participating districts to maintain several records and reports related to open enrollment. Essentially, districts need to show the Ohio Department of Education evidence of compliance with the multi-faceted open enrollment state law. Figure 5 outlines the various reports districts must send so the Ohio Department of Education can track open enrollment usage and monitor implementation.

Public Perception

Perhaps the most widespread perception of Ohio’s open enrollment practices relates to their impact on racial and economic segregation. Currently, over 90,000 students participate in inter-district open enrollment in Ohio.115 Additionally, around 80 percent of districts across the state participate in voluntary open enrollment.116 However, a 2017 study found that suburban districts around Ohio’s eight major cities—Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown—exclusively do not participate in open enrollment, effectively becoming “walled” districts.117 Notably, while these eight cities serve many low-income students and more than 63 percent of students of color, the surrounding suburban districts have fewer than 18 percent students of color.118 The study finds that non-open enrollment districts also exhibit some of Ohio’s highest achievement levels and affluence. As such, public perception generally perceives these suburban districts to be intentionally preventing students from nearby urban centers from enrolling and thus “perpetuat[ing] school segregation” and barring access to high-quality education.119

Impact on Educational Experiences of Students

Unfortunately, voluntary inter-district open enrollment policies in Ohio have allowed affluent, high-achieving suburban districts to opt-out of accepting students from outside their district boundaries, thereby eliminating one of the core benefits of open enrollment policies: increasing access to high-quality education to students regardless of their residence. The aforementioned 2017 study found that non-participating districts enroll significantly more white students than Black and Hispanic students, as well as significantly fewer students classified as ELL, economically disadvantaged, or with disabilities.120 Table 3 below shows this trend in Ohio Department of Education data from the 2013-2014 school year which includes the most recent publicly available data.

When students do have the opportunity to utilize open enrollment, studies show some promising impacts on student academic achievement. The 2017 report by the Thomas B. Fordham institute—a school-choice advocate—found moderate positive impacts of open enrollment on Ohio students. Notably, African American students who participated in open enrollment consistently made significant gains within the study period.121

Student participation in open enrollment in Ohio has gradually increased over time, but in general, Ohio lags behind other states listed in this report in terms of the percentage of students exercising open enrollment. For example, over 9 percent of Indiana’s total public school student population has utilized open enrollment, while under 5 percent of Ohio’s public-school students do the same.122 Table 4 shows student enrollment data between 2013 and 2018:

As indicated earlier in this report, transportation is one of the largest barriers for students to access open enrollment. However, similar to Arizona, Ohio allows receiving districts to provide transportation to non-resident students in certain circumstances.123 First, districts will transport non-resident students on a regular bus route within the district so long as the students can reach a bus stop within the district boundaries. Additionally, districts may establish stipends or reimbursements for low-income families to transport their transfer student(s) to and from these bus stops.124 Finally, districts may be required to provide transportation to open enrollment students to be in compliance with existing desegregation plans.

State Case Study Key Findings

Findings from Administrator Interviewsi

The following bullet points represent key findings from Hanover’s qualitative in-depth interview study with district administrators. These findings are based off of interviews with eight (8) district administrators from Arizona, Florida, Indiana, and North Carolina.

Most districts regulate inter- and intra-district enrollment solely based on classroom capacity (i.e., available seats). Districts that receive a high number of open enrollment applications will often use a lottery system that prioritizes certain tiers, such as in-district residency, on-site school employment, scholarship opportunities, or sibling choice school enrollment. Most schools will accept student transfers until they reach 90-95% capacity. Districts demonstrating stagnant or declining enrollment, on the other hand, will often accept all student applications and will not run a lottery. Notably, Arizona districts may sometimes use criteria outside classroom seat capacity to accept enrollment applications, such as attendance, discipline, or academic records. All other participants in the other states perceive such criteria as antithetical to public school education, with the exception of reviewing previous expulsion or suspension records.

All participants agree that open enrollment positively impacts families’ and students’ educational experiences through school choice opportunities. Families and students most often choose open enrollment based on the academic programming, but other common reasons for open enrollment transfers include district proximity to parents’ workplace, athletic programs, and various school climate aspects. In fact, many participants demonstrate an awareness that in order to retain and attract open enrollment students, their district must be welcoming and attentive to the needs of their stakeholders and the larger community. While many participants confirm the importance of giving parents/guardians educational choices, many especially highlight the importance of giving students a sense of agency and ownership over their own educational path.

Nearly all participants highlight the impact open enrollment has on district competition, program enhancement, and community engagement. Participants often reference the need to “retain market share” through attracting students from nearby counties (e.g., from other public-school districts, charter schools, private schools). The heightened awareness has caused many school-sites to create new or enhance existing programs in order to increase and retain enrollment. Subsequently, districts and schools consistently demonstrate a strong utilization of marketing and communication strategies as they seek to market themselves and each school’s unique programs to families within and beyond district boundaries.

All participants speak to the challenges of maintaining a cohesive district system considering open enrollment and school choice policies. Due to fluctuations in open enrollment demands, districts must constantly manage school resources and capacity, including staff, classroom space, transportation, finances, and materials. Moreover, participants explain the delicate balance districts must strike between accepting new out-of-district transfers and managing intra-district school choice transfers. To combat these challenges, districts will often limit or pause open enrollment application periods as well as set 90-95% capacity caps.

Open enrollment policies have the potential to erode community ties and neighborhood-school identities. Neighborhood schools which offer specialized programs run the risk of attracting so many choice students that the school may have to operate as exclusively specialized to meet the demand, thus disenfranchising the neighborhood residents who may not wish to participate in the program. Additionally, some participants highlight instances in which families leverage open enrollment to avoid conflict resolution and relationship-building with school staff when students face social-emotional or disciplinary concerns.

Policy Implications

The extent to which an open enrollment program can benefit families and school systems is dependent upon the structure of the program. In this section, we discuss the implications of inter-district open enrollment practices, focusing on state policies. In addition, we provide action items for various stakeholders, including families, district policy leaders, state policy leaders, researchers, journalists, and advocates.

State policy leaders hold a great responsibility of shaping open enrollment policies and practices, and ultimately, the educational choices of U.S. students. While some states are currently more permissive of inter-district open enrollment than others, state policy leaders should consider the following implications when creating or reviewing open enrollment policies:

Implications for District Policy Leaders

Open enrollment policies create an opportunity for district leaders to lean into the program and attract students, if growing their district and serving more students is a priority. District leaders should consider implications of open enrollment policies:

Available transportation highly influences student school choice options. However, most state policies do not require districts to provide transportation to out-of-district students. The lack of access to transportation can disproportionately affect students from low-income families and ultimately prevent students from exercising their school choice. To address this issue, some districts offer satellite bus stops for out-of-district or out-of-zone transfer students. Understanding the limitations of fully transporting students from outside the district boundaries, districts can establish various, conveniently located satellite bus stops to encourage out-of-district families to enroll and to further increase the diversity within the district’s student population.

School culture, as well as academic programming, matter to potential transfer students. Open enrollment opportunities invite districts to create more welcoming and positive environments to attract potential and retain currently enrolled students. Additionally, being fully transparent about each school’s unique culture, expectations, and programming will help open enrolled students verify their school choice is right for them. As such, district leaders should design a standard welcome and induction process for all open enrollment transfers. Training school staff to orient new families and create meaningful relationships will ultimately support efforts in community engagement and student retention.

Managing open enrollment requires a comprehensive approach of data tracking, forward-planning, and marketing. Schools within a district must have a balanced allocation of specialized programs so as to avoid dramatic demands in open enrollment applications for a minority of schools. For example, a district that operates only one “specialized” school or program may receive more open enrollment applications than other schools and thus create an imbalance of resources and demand. As such, each school should develop and market its unique programming to better spread the enrollment demand of students and thus the allocation of resources. In this way, districts can develop a multi-step, strategic plan to approach the management of open enrollment and intra-district school choice.

Implications for Researchers

The current state of research regarding open enrollment remains rather limited and inconsistent. Areas with a lack of consensus include open enrollment’s impact on student academic achievement, district demographics, and school quality. Therefore, future research studies should seek to close these gaps through the following recommendations:

Implications for Advocates

Open enrollment brings several benefits to students and parents in terms of school choice and educational opportunities. At the same time, current policies and practices can always be improved. Advocates can thus focus on the following implications:

Families may experience a lack of access to transportation when utilizing open enrollment. In some cases, lack of reliable transportation to a school may cause students to be unable to exercise their school choice. Advocates can appeal to individual districts, public transit systems, and alternative organizations to improve transportation options for out-of-district students.

There is room for improvement for states and districts to foster more inclusive open enrollment practices. Some state policies have historically allowed districts to engage in exclusionary practices that limit certain students from participating in open enrollment, such as permitting districts to “cherry-pick” students among open enrollment applications or set restrictive classroom capacity limits. Advocates for expanding school choice opportunities for families can appeal to state policy leaders to examine and revise current open enrollment laws.

Conclusion

There is a clear trend, both stated and demonstrated, in public education in the United States away from accepting a school assigned to children based on their address and towards choosing a school that best fits their needs. A well-designed open enrollment system, in which parents can choose any public school with acceptable transportation availability and adequate funding, works with that trend rather than trying to turn back the clock to when every district was given a geographic monopoly. Not only does this meet parents on the road to which they’re headed anyway, it can mitigate the failed efforts of state and federal policymakers to distribute educational resources to districts in a fair and equitable manner. Equality of opportunity comes not from trying to level the playing field between bureaucratic institutions, but from circumventing the institutions and empowering those whom they serve.

Massive upheavals like a global pandemic may speed up the process. But, it’s the steady momentum from children whose parents chose their school growing up to be parents who fully expect to choose their child’s school and from parents moving from states with mandatory public school choice to those without it asking why that is making school choice the default, not the exception.

Appendix 1 - State Inter-District & State Intra-District Choice Policies

Appendix 2 - Open Enrollment Annotated Bibliography

 

Introduction and Methodology

Open enrollment, a form of school choice, gives families the opportunity to choose a different school for their child than the one to which they would automatically be assigned (e.g., their neighborhood school). Depending on a state’s policy, families may select another school within their district of residence (i.e., intradistrict open enrollment) or another district (i.e., interdistrict open enrollment). To inform the design of an upcoming stakeholder survey, EdChoice has partnered with Hanover to identify literature examining the impact of open enrollment on students and schools. In addition to retaining the 20 sources from 2016-2021 contained in the original version, this updated annotated bibliography presents 49 relevant sources spanning 1990-2015. Such sources include: conference papers, government reports, journal articles, peer-reviewed journal articles, and research organization reports. The entry for each additional source contains: title; author(s); publication/publisher; year; resource type; impact (e.g., neutral, positive, negative, or mixed); and abstract. Please note that sources exclusively examining parents’ reason(s) for participating and/or the characteristics of participating children (i.e., not analyzing impacts on student or school outcomes) are generally classified as ‘neutral’.

Key Findings

A lack of consensus characterizes the literature on open enrollment. Studies draw different conclusions in terms of: the characteristics of participating students, the impact on student academic and behavioral outcomes, the impact on parental involvement, and the impact on school quality. Areas in which consensus exist include tendencies for (1) students to transfer from poorly-resourced, low-performing schools to well-resourced, high-performing schools and (2) students and parents to express high rates of satisfaction with their new school. Differing conclusions in other areas may reflect underlying differences in the nature of the open enrollment policies in the districts and schools examined (i.e., interdistrict and/or intradistrict transfers, mandatory or voluntary district participation, rights of refusal, etc.), as well as differences in how students get assigned to their default schools.
The characteristics of the students most likely to participate in open enrollment and the effects of open enrollment on their academic and behavioral outcomes vary across studies. Depending on the study, for example, Black and Hispanic students may prove less, more, or equally likely to participate in open enrollment than their White peers. However, while not unanimous, studies appear in greater agreement that open enrollment results in greater stratification by socioeconomic status or income across schools. The results of studies examining open enrollment’s effects on student outcomes also differ; for example, some studies detect evidence of higher academic achievement, while other studies find academic achievement unchanged or even lower.
Whereas studies examining the impact of open enrollment on parents typically find increased satisfaction with their child’s new school, the effects on involvement in their child’s education appear inconclusive. When surveyed, parents of participating students report high rates of satisfaction, except with respect to transportation. Many parents note the difficultly of their child’s transport to and from their new school. Regarding parent involvement in their child’s education following their transfer, some studies detect an increase, some studies find no effect, and other studies find mixed effects (e.g., some forms of involvement increase whereas others decrease or remain unchanged).
Studies disagree on whether open enrollment increases competition across districts and thus contributes to improvements in school quality. Some surveys and interviews indicate that administrators perceive positive changes in curriculum and instruction, educational programming, etc. as schools aim to become more competitive in the ‘educational marketplace’ created by open enrollment. Others find that administrators see no such effects. Studies, however, generally consider rural schools more likely to experience increases in quality than schools in other settings.

Notes
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