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The
Reason Foundation found that only 11 states have mandatory open
enrollment laws that allow students to easily transfer to other
public schools, and 26 states, including Illinois, allow public
schools to charge tuition to public school transfer students.
“Open enrollment basically means being able to attend a public
school that you aren’t residentially assigned to,” author Jude
Schwalbach said.
The report, “Public Schools Without Boundaries,” finds that
Illinois is one of 23 states that meet none of Reason’s five
open enrollment best practices. On a scale of 1-5, Illinois
received a 0.
“Illinois has a lot of work to do in improving the options for
students to transfer to schools other than their publicly
assigned one,” Schwalbach said.
Reason’s five best practices include cross-district open
enrollment, within-district open enrollment, transparent state
education agency reporting, school capacity reporting, and laws
against public school tuition for students.
Schwalbach notes that school districts in Illinois can charge
transfer students tuition to attend a public school outside of
their residentially assigned school district, which restricts
low-income students' access to alternative public school
educational opportunities.
There are 853 school districts in Illinois, with nearly 4,000
schools.
The Reason Foundation's top states for open enrollment policies
are Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma and Utah.
Kevin Bessler reports on statewide issues in
Illinois for the Center Square. He has over 30 years of
experience in radio news reporting throughout the Midwest.
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