Modern School: Fix Enrollment or Abolish It?

Modern School: Fix Enrollment or Abolish It?

Fix Enrollment or Abolish It?

by Michael Dunn

California’s Parent Trigger law has received a lot of media attention lately. However, this is not the only new rule that increases parents’ control over their children’s school. Last year, the California state legislature fast tracked through an Open Enrollment law that would allow students from the state’s lowest performing schools to transfer to a better school, even one outside their home district. Today John Fensterwald - Educated Guess wrote about this new rule in a blog posting, “Fixing Open Enrollment,” arguing that it is basically a good idea that was poorly planned and executed.

One of his criticisms is that there are too many exemptions. For example, the law excludes charter schools and limits Open Enrollment to only 10% of the schools in any district. As a result, some schools are being punished, despite having made test score gains, because they were the lowest performing school in an otherwise high performing district. According to Fensterwald, an amended version of the law, AB 47, would exempt schools with an API score