Arizona’s progress toward a boundary-free education system illuminates three essential policy considerations for lawmakers aiming to replicate its success.
- First, Don’t Leave Your Backpack!
- Prioritize long-term equity over short-term expediency.
- Second, Crawl, Walk, then Run!
- Lay out a blueprint and capitalize on incremental reforms.
- Finally, Cheer on The Heroes!
- Acknowledge the importance of our public schools andreinforce gains through advocacy.
These principles, drawn from 30 years of experience, offer a strategic approach to expanding student choice in public schools.
Don’t Leave Your Backpack!
There are few slogans easier to parrot and more difficult to implement than backpack funding for students. School funding policies must safeguard systemic fairness. It’s a moral obligation that the same student is not worth dramatically different amounts of funding depending on where they live or go to school.
Equitable funding is a precondition for open enrollment. Yet well-meaning policymakers are consistently advocating for special features to their funding which disrupts equity. These actions risk entrenching disparities if they favor certain districts or programs over others. In Arizona, efforts to bolster local funding have occasionally heightened inequities, complicating student mobility and fueling taxpayer friction.
Effective open enrollment demands a funding model that ensures consistent resources accompany each student, preventing geographic or economic advantages from distorting access.
Crawl, Walk, then Run!
Incremental reforms build momentum. Arizona’s system evolved through targeted adjustments rather than sweeping mandates. Simply allowing open enrollment won’t do much to encourage it if there are bureaucratic barriers. States should map out how families use open enrollment, step by step, and use those data to knock down barriers.
Focused interventions—streamlining transfers, reducing paperwork, or piloting unrestricted schools—accumulate over time, gradually normalizing choice. This approach allows lawmakers to refine policies based on real outcomes, avoiding overreach while advancing the broader objective. Once open enrollment is the standard, policymakers can more easily “tie up loose ends” with policy changes to solidify the effort.
One recent example in Arizona is the elimination of rural tuition fees for high school attendance, a change driven by Rep. Michelle Udall that could have been controversial decades ago but instead became a simple clean-up matter that was bipartisan and faced little opposition.
Cheer on the Heroes!
Taxpayers have invested hundreds of billions in public schools, and they will continue to be the backbone of K-12 education into the future. Once open enrollment becomes the standard, those opening their doors should be acknowledged for their public service. Arizona’s leaders consistently highlight successful high schools like Mountain Pointe High School (607 students open enrolled) and Catalina Foothills in Tucson (900 students open enrolled), which thrive in part by attracting students beyond traditional boundaries. This emphasis counters outdated assumptions about geographic necessity, particularly as declining birth rates—down 17% from current seniors to next year’s preschoolers—force districts to adapt or consolidate.
Schools free from boundary constraints mitigate these pressures, offering stability and versatility. By promoting these examples, policymakers reinforce the case for choice, leveraging public schools’ existing strengths—facilities, programs, and public investment—to meet modern demands. Some of the best advocates for school choice in your state will be successful public schools. Cheer them on.
The result is a resilient system that aligns resources with student needs, not exclusionary lines. But there are many skeptical holdouts who need to first know the water is safe before they’ll swim. A long-term strategic plan can create those conditions. Arizona’s experience suggests that dismantling boundaries is less a radical act than a logical sequence of policies fostering mobility.
Lawmakers must balance equity, adaptability, and communication to ensure open enrollment enhances the capacity of public education rather than merely shifting its burdens. Done thoughtfully, this approach positions schools to serve families effectively in an era of demographic and social change.
Sean McCarthy is Director of Fiscal Policy at the Arizona House of Representatives and a 2025 No More Lines Ambassador with yes. every kid.
