Who's Benefiting from Open Enrollment?

Open enrollment should be scrutinized as a gift to the wealthy elite. I mean after all, who’s benefiting by open enrollment most, when you examine the cost of the program borne by the parents. I’m just curious, and I could be completely wrong, but something seems wrong about open enrollment.

Tell me that you don’t see the economic divide in the following story. Wausau Daily Harold:

Open enrollment is a process that allows families to send their children to a public school district outside of the one’s in which they live. The number of transfers, both new and continuing has been climbing steadily since 1998 when 2,464 students in Wisconsin schools changed districts … Five years ago, that number had climbed to 28,025. DPI estimates that 41,562 students used open enrollment this school year.

Think about the possibility of privilege being a factor:

Most transfers taking place … families have moved from one district to another, but who want to keep their children in their original schools. But as the number of new charter schools and specialty programs pop up, parents are increasingly using the program to find the right kind of education for their children. Peter and Sue of the town of Norrie have used the open enrollment process for their son, Scott, for both continuity and program reasons. The couple lived in the D.C. Everest Area School District for years, and then built a home in the Wittenberg-Birnamwood School District. They wanted to keep Scott in his original school, Riverside Elementary, and used the process to keep him there.

Oh but there’s more:

Later, the couple decided that Scott would be best served in the Everest district’s new charter school, the Idea Charter School. The open enrollment process spurs districts to innovate to remain competitive.  

Think the poor and middle class can do the following:

• Logistics. Parents need to provide transportation to school for students under the program

• Continuity. Most parents in north central Wisconsin use open enrollment to keep children in original schools after the family moves. In general, keeping kids in familiar schools helps keep them on track

• Programs. Most school districts offer special programs that can benefit specific kinds of learners.  

Anyone have enough money to move? How about the cost of transportation and the time to cart the kid around, just so they don’t have to meet a group of new classmates? And what about the likelihood of getting your kid into a charter school, in another district?

I’m just asking who’s taking advantage of the open enrollment program, since I haven’t seen a breakdown of participating family’s incomes. Anyone else curious? 

Public Education Convulses in Racine, Parents Powerless.

If you don’t read any further than this paragraph, I want to ask you to watch the video below as the perfect example of just what is happening to education in our state, and country. It will prove to you the public has no actual input into education anymore. You’ll also see how open enrollment and vouchers are picking the meat of the bones of what’s left of the public education carcass. I hope you have time to read the rest…

Walker’s “tools” were a onetime fix that delayed the upcoming public education bloodletting for one year. Ideologically exuberant district superintendents couldn’t wait to do away with the work involved in teacher negotiations, all the while pushing their own agenda of privatization.

   

As much as your nearest Republicans neighbor might say otherwise, school districts aren’t in better shape after utilizing Scott Walker’s tools to rein in the cost of education. Walker’s rules are doing just what Republican legislators knew would happen. The end result?

Public schools are about to become too expensive. The maintenance of existing school district infrastructure will crush public schools. That’s why we’re seeing schools close all over the state. But the Walker plan unfortunately is gaining public support because of a nationwide campaign to sell “choice” as a parental empowerment. The ad campaign is working.

But if choice empowers parents, then why are these same parents so angry in the Racine school district? From the Caledonia Patch, and reporter Denise Lockwood, this heart sinking display of public passion;  

Racine Unified administrators got an earful of questions and concerns about a redistricting proposal that calls for closing Wind Point and Goodland elementary schools. At the meeting Ann Laing, acting superintendent of the Racine Unified School District, told about 100 staff, parents and students that she'd rather not have to close the schools. Still, she laid out the administration’s rationale behind the proposal, but the district’s financial problems have remained an issue. The reality is the district is facing a $6.5 million shortfall.  And although Laing said she didn’t want to close the schools, this option is much more palatable than laying off more teachers.

But even still, that might happen too, she warned. “It’s up to the Board to make a decision about what they want to do with this, but they need to make a decision because if they don’t make this decision soon, logistically we can’t make changes for the next school year,” Laing said.

Think about this too; why would private schools want to fill the void of public schools if state funding is getting slashed? That would mean fewer taxpayer dollars for them too, right? Perhaps private schools will get much of their funding through corporate sponsorship, like in a few other states, carrying out their “free market” corporate curriculum. Could corporate indoctrination of our kids be a part of the plan? I know, it sounds like a sequel to the first two Wall Street movies.