Open enrollment’s dazed and confused start
School districts are about to be irritated and many parents bewildered by a not-ready-for-prime-time landmark law that was hastily pitched in January as key to the state’s application for federal Race to the Top money.
Parents in what were envisioned to be the 1,000 lowest-performing schools in the state will be notified that their children are eligible to transfer to any better performing school in any district in the state. The worthy goal of the open-enrollment law is to give choices to families trapped in bad schools in struggling districts.
But less than half of the 687 elementary schools on the list could be considered really bad, and some of the remainder have pretty decent scores. Many, if not most, of the parents who’ll be told they can transfer to schools in other districts will discover that there aren’t any openings – at least not this fall.
And short-staffed district office personnel who are coping with added demands caused by budget cuts have just had one more state dictate handed down from Sacramento on short notice.
In order for the open-enrollment to move ahead immediately this year, the State Board of Education last Thursday unanimously adopted an emergency declaration, stating that students in the 1,000 schools were facing “serious harm.” The State Board had no option; the Legislature in passing the open enrollment part of SB X5-4, required that the timetable be speeded up. Sen. Gloria Romero, who sponsored the bill, saw the Race to the Top application as an opportunity to push forward an eye-catching reform (and her odds of being elected superintendent of public instruction).
But the bill was short on details and includes problems created by political compromise. The list of schools is one problem; the program’s timing is another.
The 1,000 schools eligible for open enrollment were to be shorthand for the lowest scoring 10 percent of the roughly 10,000 non-charter public schools in the state. But in order to limit the financial impact on troubled districts, no district would have more than 10 percent of its schools on the list. The practical impact of that decision was to ensnare schools not in the lowest 10 percent but in the lowest 20, 30 and 40 percent. Ninety-five elementary schools are in the fifth decile – close to the state average; 33 are in the sixth decile, making them above average, and six schools on the 1,000 “worst” list have API of 800 or just above it, 800 being the state’s target for success.
No matter how districts soft-pedal the message, parents will be confused as to why they’re getting letters saying their kids can now enroll in better schools.
Had the Legislature strictly limited the open-enrollment universe to the bottom 10 percent, there’d be less resentment.
Will districts open their borders?
Whether they’ll be enough admitting schools for this fall is another issue. There may be districts with declining enrollments that will be pleased to take in students from other districts. But most districts, already facing big classes, teacher layoffs and uncertain budgets, will likely say they don’t have any room this fall. Others, wary of taking in low-performing students, will come up with reasons why they’d be adversely affected financially, as the law permits them to define.
With another nine-months of planning, more districts might prove receptive to open enrollment. But for this fall, I’ll be surprised if there are many takers.
Along with better preparing parents, there were wiser ways to roll out open enrollment without riling up districts that already are near the breaking point.
12 Comments
"Darn, I wish I had read that over again before I hit send.” Don’t let this be your lament. To promote a civil dialogue, please be considerate, respectful and mindful of your tone. We encourage you to use your real name, but if you must use a nom de plume, stick with it. Anonymous postings will be removed.
 |
Featured Video |
Did You Know?
Just the Facts
Other Sites to Watch
View More >>
SVEF is the education foundation advocating for the needs of school districts across Silicon Valley. SVEF seeks to improve public education through establishing partnerships with the private sector and the education community ..
Gloria Romero is such a laughingstock right now because of her idiotic bill attempting to strip serpentine of its title as state rock that it’s kind of amusing to see her name in a serious context (and funnier that someone who is so involved in celebrating ignorance should have just run for state supe of public instruction). But that aside … it’s my understanding that under No Child Left Behind, families at certain schools already have the right to “escape” to better schools, and that districts are required to send them letters notifying them of that, but that almost no families actually exercise that right. John, maybe you can enlighten us?
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
You’re right, Caroline. Students in schools that have not met their targets under AYP for two years consecutively (I believe) have the right to transfer to another school in the district. I’ll have to double-check the exact figure, but the number of students who actually transfer has been in the low single digits. There’s been a lot of debate as to why this is: a question of late notification that is not enforced, difficulty in transferring to another school, satisfaction with status quo. But some schools have complained loudly that even at the low rate, this provision of NCLB has compounded a school’s efforts to get out of sanctions, because the more motivated families are the ones that flee.
Open enrollment would create the potential for inter-district transfers. There is also the assumption that the process of notification would be better enforced by the state since it’s a state-run program.
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
As if parents didn’t have enough to look forward to in the coming school year, they now have another convoluted policy to contend with, sent from Sacramento with a shrug. Yet it’s unsurprising the state’s lawmakers failed to foresee the open enrollment mess as they scrambled in vain for Race to the Top funds in January. In the eleventh hour, with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, our legislators would have supported almost any bill with the words “accountability” and “choice” scattered through it. Therein lies the problem.
As sloppy Sen. Gloria Romero’s SBX5-4 has turned out to be, the true catalyst behind the resulting mess is not our state legislators, but really the Race to the Top initiative itself. As schools with above average APIs of 800 are being classified as being among the state’s worst and high-performing principals and teachers are fired, we enter a strange, Ducanesque world of contradiction and paradox. Left is right, good is bad, and, most distressingly, success is failure.
There’s no other way of putting it: Race to the Top has hurt our schools. This high profile, high-stakes competition for cash left behind a legacy of incomplete state legislation across the country. It’s striking to think that with only 10% of the lowest performing schools being eligible for open enrollment, the remaining 90% will continue to struggle without a structural reform or funding increase in sight. Those hurt most will almost certain be those hurting now: low-income families of color.
Arne Duncan and the President have said time and again that this would be the true legacy of the initiative – convincing states to implement “groundbreaking reforms” through competition alone. The Federal government could turn around our nation’s struggling schools and improve student performance without articulating a clear policy vision, without bothering to really understand “what works,” and without spending more than a few billion dollars, nationwide.
That was the Race to the Top gimmick; California’s open enrollment debacle is the unacceptable result.
Jack Loveridge
Policy Analyst
Justice Matters
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
I’m wondering about the provision that allows districts to refuse to enroll out of district students if it is “financially adverse”. Won’t this always be the case for Basic Aid districts, since no money comes with the additional students? For example, won’t Palo Alto be able to claim adverse financial consequences to avoid taking students from East Palo Alto?
If this is true, then will only the ADA districts (which tend to not be as wealthy as the Basic Aid districts) be required to take students? This seems just wrong to require the less wealthy districts to take students.
Or, will all districts be able to freely opt out?
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
What you failed to mention was that one of the schools in the 800 range ON the list is also ON the list as one of the best performing schools—the California Distnguished Schools lists (sanger)and 48 on the list have API scores of 790 or better.
Thank you for the article
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
John — Your prognostication on the new Open Enrollment law has been confirmed already via a story in this morning’s Monterey Co Herald that this area’s highest performing districts [Carmel and Pacific Grove] would not be accepting transfers from open enrollment schools in nearby districts for the 10-11 school year, as permitted by the new law. Also, the finances are daunting for acceptance of transfers in future years — the high performing districts spend more than $13,000 per student largely from local property tax sources, while a student from an open enrollment school in a nearby district would come with only roughly $6,000 in state revenues per the provisions of the new law. That certainly will discourage the high performing district from accepting large numbers of transfers, and the high performing districts are permitted to turn down transfers for financial reasons. Doug McRae, Retired Test Publisher, Monterey
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
This list truly takes the cake! My school of 430 K-8 students met all of its API and AYP criteria last year and with a 787 API we now find ourselves on the list while scores of other schools in Tulare County with lower scores are protected because of the 10% rule. It’s another example of our state doing the very thing that we encourage teachers not to do–constant negative consequences. Where is the positive encouragement from our state officials for the schools that are doing well and even for those that are showing at least some incremental growth each year!? Exasperation is mounting. If the state wants all of our parents notified that they can transfer elsewhere to escape our “low achieving” school, then they can do it themselves!
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
Maybe some of the perfectly successful schools on Romero’s “failing” list can accept students from themselves. … But seriously, don’t we already know that parents do not pull their kids out of school in droves even when they’re told straight out that the schools are “failing”? So isn’t the concern about transfers kind of a moot point? This law is turning out to be even more unworkable than the war against serpentine — can a legislator ask for a do-over when she discovers she has completely blown it?
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
Well, like Ravitch has demonstrated, it’s far better to experience an epiphany than remain mired in fantasy. It appears that a number of folks now see the phony RTTT based “reform” efforts of the legislature and the SBE for what they are, political and policy “theater.” Immediately following the “senseless act of policy,” so well articulated by John above, the SBE engaged in a “random (not so much actually) act of hypocrisy.” After throwing about 1000 schools under the bus based on API and test scores (and some just for the joy of seeing the schools suffer under a potential witch hunt) the very next agenda item the SBE took under consideration was the possible revocation of state granted charters based on a low API. Oh, the anguish! Oh, the tears! Both SBE President Mitchell and newly appointed SBE member Ben Austin frantically asserted that using test scores to close charters would be using “far too blunt an instrument.” Mitchell intoned, “We would be putting those schools in a ‘regulatory bear trap.’” Ya’ have to admire the cast iron gall.
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
Time to renew my call to eliminate the SBE. The charter schools already have a private lobby, which they can well afford thanks to the torrents of donations showered upon them by the Billionaire Boys’ Club. They don’t need one funded by the taxpayers too, and that seems to be the SBE’s primary function.
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
I have been teaching for thirteen years in an “under-performing school” where we brought our score from 380 to 750 in a handful of years. This is a school that families would flee, if they had the money to move into different neighborhoods, the ability to get jobs elsewhere, were literate, and not completely buried in the day to day reality of poverty. They do not lack motivation.
So it is meaningless political hot air to “open all schools” to them. They already have to option to go, and they have already been notified of that option. I now of one family out of 900 who actually moved schools.
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
Make that “I know of one family…”
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity