Parents Push for Open Enrollment, Wanting Ability to Choose Schools for Kids

[proud2BlibKansan]

The School Choice Movement wants Missouri parents to have more choices for their childrens' education. They're pushing for open enrollment, which, they say, would force public schools to improve in order to keep students.

Missouri's School Choice Movement is pushing for open enrollment which would allow students to attend school across their district boundaries. And while it has the support of many parents, administrators aren't convinced.

According to reports, 84 students since the fall of 2007 gave false addresses in order to attend Lee's Summit schools. Others forged documents to attend. They were all removed from the district.

Supporters said public demand from families such as these make it necessary for another push in the state legislature in the coming session.

more . . . http://www.fox4kc.com/wdaf-open-enrollment-1410,0,4213582.story

This is a big issue in rural areas where kids sometimes live closer to schools in neighboring districts. Reps in my state tell me they will be spending lots of time this session debating this issue.

[Craftsman]

1. Good

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. I think it should be available in rural areas but not in urban areas

In MO, they allow charter schools only in urban areas so it makes sense to make open enrollment available only in rural areas.

[femmocrat]

2. What will it cost for busing?

It would be a budget-buster here unless the state helped out. Since they only pay about 50% of their share now, I could see this as a huge burden on local taxpayers.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Probably no money for transportation

Parents will have to provide it.

Which is one more way low income kids, whose parents don't always have access to transportation, will be left out.

on edit: I also have a problem with parents breaking the rules so they lobby to have the rules changed.

[femmocrat]

5. Figures. So much for that brilliant idea!

No one ever figures out the unintended consequences, do they?

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. It's just one more way in MO to weaken the urban districts

They have been at it for years. Many fights in the state capital where state reps from rural areas propose legislation that impacts only the schools in KC and St Louis.

[madmom]

7. I find this troubling because..

The school district I live in was a very good district when we chose to move our kids here and agreed to pay the extremely high property taxes. Now they have open enrollment, we pay even higher taxes (since the businesses in area where re-assessed someone had to make up the difference)we have had some good students come in, but a lot of bad ones, meaning they are the trouble makers in their own district, parents are now moving them here "for a fresh start" that ain't working! now the old schools are improving their status (a good thing) our school is becoming know as "the home for troubles makers" and we still pay higher property taxes. How is that fair to us?

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. Most proposals require the home district to send the state aid to the receiving district

I hear you about the discipline concerns. It's a problem where I am as well. Kids get kicked out of one district and then use Grandma's address to enroll in a neighboring district.

[madmom]

9. We have open enrollment, they don't need to use Grandma's address, and as

far as state aid, that's laughable because we barely get what we are supposed to get without them. We have a GM foundry within our district, they paid, at one time, a large amount of property tax because of this. They were re-assessed several years ago now pay not much at all. Now home-owners have to make up the difference because, heaven forbid, the school learn to live within their means. We own about 1/3 as much property as my mother in law, in an adjoining school district, we pay about double what she pays every year in property taxes alone. This is one of the several schools sending us their problem kids.

[tonysam]

10. What they need to do is fund school districts equally.

End of problem.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. Easier said than done

Some kids cost more than others.

And if Title I funding wasn't so screwed up . . .

[tonysam]

13. I am looking at the courts, obviously,

to mandate equal funding.

[FBaggins]

12. This assumes that the problem is funding

Or at least substantially so.

It ignores the simple fact that many schools appear to underperform because they aren't given the same raw materials to work with. Simple demographic differences account for large portions of the difference in results. Take the kids of the upper-middle-class families out of these schools and let them go to the supposedly "better" schools and the measured results will show even greater disparity.

[YvonneCa]

14. Californina legislature taking this up...

...as well. There was much discussion in the Ed.Committee (I think that's what was televised) about Title I money and where it would go.

[erinlough]

15. Michigan has this

First the state changed the funding formula. All property taxes go to the state who doles it back out to the schools per pupil. Then the kids go where the parents want them to with priority going to students in the districts and available openings going to people who apply. I work in a successful school so we now have 30% of our students school of choice. However some community schools have closed and some don't even exist anymore. With the state having total control over the operating funds, they can refuse to give them to you when their budget is down, which in Michigan just happened. Even great schools, like mine, are having a hard time. The only way a school can make it is to have a casino in their school boundries, that way they are granted a portion of the slot revenues and the state can't touch it. It is not a good system, believe me.

Additionally the community feel and pride in a school quickly goes away. I don't know where my kids come from anymore, which is OK unless you want them to stay after school for extra help or come back to school for a practice, then you may find that is a 20 mile trip for their parents. Additionally some parents are school jumpers and take their kids from school to school until they find a system who will do things their way. We keep plenty of those, it doesn't make for great discipline when the cha-ching parent can tell you if you discipline my kid I'll take my money elsewhere.