K-12 open enrollment lets students transfer outside their residentially assigned schools so long as seats are available. EdChoice’s February polling found that 78% of school parents supported this burgeoning public school choice policy and only 13% outright opposed it. In fact, approximately 668,000 students used open enrollment during the 2022-23 school year in just eight states.
Open enrollment operates in two ways: Cross-district open enrollment lets students transfer to school districts outside the one they live in, while within-district open enrollment lets students transfer to schools inside their school district but outside their residentially assigned catchment area.
Policymakers are aware of the growing appetite for open enrollment. During the 2024 legislative sessions, state legislators in at least 23 states introduced 54 open enrollment proposals.
Six states—Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and West Virginia—signed them into law last year.
Now a total of 16 states have strong statewide cross-district open enrollment laws, while 13 states have strong statewide within-district open enrollment laws.
Strong open enrollment laws are distinguished by the fact that all school districts with available capacity must participate in the program. This ensures that students can fill every available seat.
Accordingly, state policymakers should codify that state education agencies (SEAs) must publish annual reports that include detailed data on open enrollment. These reports should be made available to the general public and published on the SEA’s website, as well as sent to the state’s legislature and governor for review.
This issue brief provides a roadmap to policymakers for strengthening open enrollment laws by requiring state education agencies to publish transparent reports that include important open enrollment data.
Without good data, policymakers, taxpayers, and parents can neither make informed decisions about programs nor hold school districts accountable for their open enrollment practices. Highly transparent open enrollment reports, published annually by state education agencies are an important first step to remedy this problem.
Full Policy Brief — Transparent K-12 Open Enrollment Matters: Reporting the Data That Inform Policymakers, Taxpayers, and Families