Abstract
With increased school choice options for parents, open enrollment in public schools has seen significant growth. As parents seek greater access to educational options for their children, urban schools and schools in high poverty areas have seen enrollments plummet. This has led to a decrease in the educational opportunities for disadvantaged students that remain at their home schools. Research on school choice has focused primarily on charter schools and private schools, with minimal attention given to the factors that lead parents to choose a regular public school other than their home school within the same school district. With nearly 20% of all California students in grades K-12 exercising some form of school choice, this study will more closely examine the phenomenon of families choosing to enroll their children in regular public schools other than their home school. For this study, quantitative methods are used. Within the frameworks of rational choice theory and social cognitive theory, this study answers the following questions: 1) to what extent do schools have the capacity to affect the changes necessary to influence enrollment patterns of their schools, and 2) to what degree do current school policies influence open-enrollment and school choice decisions of parents? The participating school district for this study is a large comprehensive pre K–12 school district in northern California. The data for this study included demographic and enrollment data for the entire study body. The second source of data was derived from parent surveys of participants and non-participants in open enrollment. The results of this study suggest that the greatest indicator of participation in open enrollment is if the neighborhood school has a lower API than the district’s average. Additionally, students that identify as “other Asian” and not specifically with one of the groups identified, are White and speak a language other than English, or are female, also have an increased likelihood of participation in open enrollment. Parents also indicated that the availability of desirable programs was a significant factor in open enrolment participation.