The State : Debate Opens on Enrollment

The debate over open enrollment, the concept of allowing parents to choose their children’s schools regardless of district boundaries, has formally begun in the Legislature, but the broad disagreement expressed at a Senate Education Committee hearing suggested that legislation permitting such choice could be a long way off. State schools Supt. Bill Honig said a limited open enrollment program would improve California education. But the head of the California Teachers Assn. called the idea a “hoax,” and the president-elect of the California School Boards Assn. expressed several reservations about the proposal. “Do we really want the choice to be ‘love it or leave it’ when the educational program is not meeting the standards of a family, or do we want to maintain the commitment to neighborhood schools and their improvement?” asked Maureen DiMarco, the school boards association president-elect.