An Empirical Evidence of Open Enrollment Among Students in Child Protection

Background

Students living in urban areas where racially and economically disadvantaged families are concentrated (Massey, 1990) are assigned into low performing schools in standardized tests, compared to suburban area students. The low performance of urban schools is complicated with many factors, including poor school resources and investments (Roscigno, Tomaskovic-Devey, & Crowley, 2006) and the concentration of disadvantaged cohorts that makes it difficult for these students to bridge to other social networks that may be of benefit in formal schooling (Cobb & Glass, 2009). Open enrollment policies allow urban students access to schools out of their resident areas. The open enrollment could equalize the school environments of urban students to those of suburban students, reduce segregation or isolation, and thus expand their achievement. However, a few studies argued that the open enrollment was not functioning equitably. Therefore, it is important to identify unequal utilization of open enrollment by students in child protection, find factors to improve academic achievement, and devise policies to remedy the inequity (e.g., Kraus, 2008). The main goal of this study consist of identifying to what extent students in child protection utilized open enrollment in a Midwestern city and comparing their performances on standardized tests before and after the school change occurred.

Method

The sample for this study was drawn from the group of students who resided and enrolled in the Minneapolis school district in the beginning of the 2007-08 school year. Of the 30,523 students who met this criteria, 3,060 students also had a history of involvement in the child protection (10%). The Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment-II served as a key outcome variable for this study. The sample was divided into two groups: students who utilized open enrollment and students who did not utilize open enrollment. The open enrollment group consisted of 28 students who 1) were in grades 3-6 in 2007-08, 2) had a history of child protection service involvement, 3) utilized the open enrollment option to move to a school out of their resident district in 2007-08, and 4) remained in those schools for the following two academic years (i.e., 2008-09 and 2009-10). The non-Open Enrollment group consisted of 56 students who 1) were in grades 3-6 in 2007-08, 2) had a history of child protection service involvement, and 3) remained in their resident district for the 2007-08, 2008-09, and 2009-10 academic years. Optimal matching, using the propensity score method, was conducted to produce the comparison (non-Open Enrollment) group of students. The regression analysis and linear mixed models with a propensity score matching method were administered to identify to what extent students in child protection utilize inter-district open enrollment and to examine their academic achievement before and after the open enrollment was employed.

Conclusion

The results indicated that open enrollment provided students in the child protection with equal access to racially and socioeconomically integrated schools. However, these students’ academic performance was not significantly enhanced by their open enrollment. The results raised questions about the characteristics of open enrollment for students in child protection.