The original amendment exempted the districts of St. Louis and Kansas City, but Representative Don Calloway, a Democrat from the St. Louis County area of Bel- Nor, successfully added an amendment that would have included the St. Louis Public School District.  Representative Calloway argued that St. Louis is the “flagship failing school district” in the state and children there should be able to leave the district if they choose to do so.  Representative Dieckhaus was in favor of this amendment and also asked a Representative from Kansas City to propose an amendment that would include that city’s district as well.

Opponents of the amendment argued hypothetical, and often seemingly one in a million chance, problems with the policy of open enrollment.  These objections ranged anywhere from schools not being able to plan budgets to concerns that students would essentially endlessly jump around from school to school.  This despite the fact that students have to apply to the receiving school well in advance of the next school year and students could only go open enroll to a school outside of their assigned zone district one time.  Opponents even tried to call this a voucher system which is ridiculous considering that vouchers are illegal under the Missouri State Constitution.  Proponents of the amendment stuck to the simple philosophy that a child stuck in a school district that is failing or not a good fit should have an opportunity to go to another district.

While the amendment failed by a vote of 34 – 122, the debate on the issue put education reform and school choice front and center in the Missouri House for most of the day’s session.  The issue is not dead for the year, as there is an Open Enrollment bill in the Senate Education Committee that has been heard, but has yet to come up for a vote.  The Children’s Education Council of Missouri hopes that the debate on this important issue continues sometime during the session.  Children trapped in failing schools deserve the opportunity to look for alternatives in order to receive an appropriate education.

CECM State Director Earl Simms recently talked to KOMU 8 in Columbia, Missouri about the organization’s support for legislation (SB 603) that would allow open enrollment in Missouri’s public schools.  Below is the text of testimony given to the Senate Education Committee:

The Children’s Education Council of Missouri (CECM) is in favor of Senate Bill 603 which establishes procedures for open enrollment of public school students across school district boundary lines.  We believe that this bill could help education for special needs families in three key ways.

1.         Open enrollment would allow for families who are not satisfied with the quality of education their district zone school is providing to seek a public school option in another district. Our office receives calls from parents who are frustrated with the execution of their child’s IEP and feel helpless because they cannot afford to send their child to a private specialized school, trapping them in a failing situation.  I would invite the committee to talk to Representative Dwight Scharnhorst, who chaired the Interim Committee on Autism Spectrum Disorders.  At these hearings families testified about their desperation for help with their child’s educational situation and being trapped in a school that was not reaching their child.  At the same hearing, Special School District and Rockwood School District testified on some of the great progress they are making with autistic students.  It would have been great if these parents could have, through open enrollment, sought placement in these, or other, districts that are showing progress with this student population.

2.         Open enrollment would allow for families who have disagreements with their district zone school’s policies and procedures, such as seclusion, restraint and corporal punishment to seek a public school option in another district. I recently had a conversation with a parent of an autistic child who withdrew her child from their local district school and is now homeschooling.  She did this because of her disagreement with how the school was using seclusion and restraint with her child.  As with many parents of special needs children, she could not afford to send her child to a private service provider.  She stated that she would have been interested to have had open enrollment as an option so she could look at other districts in the area to see if they provided good services and she agreed with their policy on these key issues to her family.

3.         Open enrollment would allow neighboring districts to collaborate when planning services for their special needs children. For example, according to data from DESE, Meramec Valley School District in southwest St. Louis County has 21 students with an IEP due to a diagnosis of autism.  By contrast neighboring Rockwood School District has 263 students with an IEP due to a diagnosis of autism.  Transferring students, through open enrollment, from low instance districts to higher instance districts would save districts from hiring a specialized teacher and purchasing specialized teaching tools for only a small number of students.

The first study presented was a study of charter school achievement in the state, looking at value-added estimates of charter and non-charter public schools in Kansas City and St. Louis.  The study measured growth of individual students’ standardized test scores from 2006 – 2009 and compared achievement growth of students in charter schools to students in traditional public schools in the Kansas City and St. Louis school districts. The study also compared these scores to all Missouri public school students.  While the study, used a statistical model which controlled for grade and year indicators, prior test scores, and student characteristics, I do not think it eliminated the selective enrollment magnet schools.  This is a key of any charter study since charters may not have selective enrollment.  According to Missouri law, they must have lotteries to determine enrollment.

The study found, as do most studies of this type, that some charter public schools perform better than the district zone schools and some perform worse.  The important part is that the poor performing charter schools close.  Furthermore, families should have access to high quality charter schools and practices from these schools should be immolated by others.

Also studied by the Joint Education Committee was the issue of urban school governance, especially in Kansas City.  The study looked at history and research on school board governance, a school governance workshop summary, the specifics of urban school governance in the Kansas City School District (KCMSD), and took testimony at public forum in Kansas City.  The committee focused mostly on the comments at the public forum, saying that some wanted a state appointed board to take over the district, but most wanted the reforms to come from within the city.  Everyone appeared to be complimentary of the new Superintendent that had been hired in July of 2009.  Another pressing issue of the report was the fact that six members of the school board are elected by district and only three are elected at- large.

The final study reviewed was the most watched one in the interim, the open enrollment study.  The study highlighted Missouri’s optional or conditional open enrollment laws and other states’ laws on open enrollment and their K-12 funding proportions.  As part of the study, public hearings were also held in Jefferson City, Branson, and St. Louis.  CECM testified in support of open enrollment at the St. Louis hearing by discussing how it would help special needs families and could possibly increase the diversity in districts.

Some of the highlights of the study included:

• 14 states have mandatory open enrollment laws.
• Most laws address special education, transportation, capacity, desegregation, funding, disciplinary issues, and competitive athletics.
• Missouri is one of 23 states with conditional or optional open enrollment.
• Missouri has a higher percentage of K-12 funding from local revenue than 13 of 14 open enrollment states.
• Participation in open enrollment in states with mandatory open enrollment ranges from 0.5% to 18.8%. (median 4.7%).

Full copies of the studies can be found on the Joint Education Committee’s Website

In some cases, as Meta, MO mother Lois Wankum testified to the committee at their October 20th hearing, students are much closer to a school in an adjacent district than the one to which they are assigned. In other cases, parents are simply looking to remove their child from a failing school district and enroll them in ones that are better performing. For many special needs parents this policy could unlock the doors of educational opportunity for their child that is trapped in a district that does not have the appropriate services to help their child.

Open enrollment would allow for these parents, who often do not have the means to send their child to a private education service such as TouchPoint or Giant Steps, to move their child to a district that may have better services. For example, the Rockwood School District in suburban St. Louis County gave an excellent presentation on their special needs services at the St. Louis meeting of the Interim Committee on Autism Spectrum Disorders. At the same hearing a mother gave desperate testimony on how her autistic child was having many problems in his local school district and she could not afford to send her child to a specialized private school. “I am drowning here” was the phrase that she repeated over and over. Why should her head continue to be held under water by outdated school district lines? Why should these district lines trap her son in the boundaries of receiving an ineffective education instead of receiving a possible lifeline of intervention leading to a productive, healthy life?

A study in Minnesota, one of 25 states that have open enrollment, shows that “the families of special-needs students are increasingly using the open-enrollment option and are satisfied with their choices.” This same option could be a reality for the families of 133,000+ IEP students in the state of Missouri, should the state choose to allow this policy. These families are not concerned with outdated school boundaries, only with seeing that their child has the best possible education options, and thus the best chance for leading a productive life.