Abstract
In 2011, the Wisconsin legislature greatly expanded Wisconsin’s open enrollment program by lengthening the regular application window and creating a year-round alternative application procedure with a vague and undefined best interest of the pupil standard. This Comment addresses the Wisconsin Open Enrollment Program in the larger context of school choice, its recent amendments, and the resulting obstacles to ensure equal educational opportunities for all Wisconsin students. It suggests that the continued expansion of open enrollment without sufficiently defined standards undermines local control and opts to further a handful of individual students at the expense of the collective statewide population. Further, this Comment advocates for a return to a more limited and defined version of open enrollment and alternatively proposes a balancing test by which to weigh the best interests of each student against the administrative, financial, and equitable implications of open enrollment that impact the effective operation of public schools.
Repository Citation
Laura Malugade,
Open Enrollment: What’s In the Best Interest of Wisconsin Students, Families, and Public Schools?,
97 Marq. L. Rev. 813
(2014).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol97/iss3/7