Open Enrollment and Disrupting the Political Ecology of U.S. Public Education

ABSTRACT

Despite receiving little academic attention, open enrollment has the greatest potential among school choice policies to transform the governance of local school districts because all student transfers occur within the public school system, meaning that families and governance structures in two (or more) school districts are impacted by open-enrollment decisions. In this conceptual disconnection we demonstrate how open enrollment complicates the traditional educational ecosystem dramatically by altering existing relationships and introducing new actors and relationships into how school districts establish and implement policies. We then complicate the traditional analysis of open enrollment through the lens of Critical Policy Analysis, alongside an example from an Arizona school district, to illustrate the ways that racism and other forms of oppression are often overlooked, yet salient in (mis)shaping democratic governance in a political ecology disrupted by open enrollment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carrie Sampson

Carrie Sampson is an Assistant Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on educational leadership, policy, and equity from three interrelated perspectives – democracy, community advocacy, and politics.

David R. Garcia

David R. Garcia is an Associate Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. Garcia’s professional experience includes extensive work in education policy development and implementation. His academic work is centers on school choice, accountability, and research utilization. In 2018, he published School Choice (MIT Press). His current book, Teach Truth to Power, also by MIT Press, is on the intersection between research, policy, and politics.

Matthew O. Hom

Matthew O. Hom, Ph.D. is a research economist at Spotify. He previously earned his Ph.D. in economics from Yale University in 2018, where he piloted the first modern, large-scale study of Arizona’s school choice policies. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Spotify.

Melanie Bertrand

Melanie Bertrand is an associate professor at the University of Arizona. Her research explores the potential of youth and community leadership to improve schools and challenge systemic racism and other forms of oppression in education.