- A 2025 report ranks North Carolina one of the worst states in the country when it comes to open enrollment, a policy that lets students choose among traditional K–12 public schools
- Oklahoma leads the nation on open enrollment, requiring all districts to allow within-district and cross-district transfers, publishing key data to promote transparency and accountability, and allowing families to appeal rejected transfer requests, among other things
- A 2025 bill would have required all districts in North Carolina to offer within-district open enrollment, but it was watered down to a study bill, which remains in committee
North Carolina remains one of the worst states in the country when it comes to promoting choice among traditional public schools (i.e., not counting charter schools), according to a 2025 study from the Reason Foundation.
As the John Locke Foundation has observed, North Carolina lags behind nearly all other states in offering open enrollment for students in traditional K–12 public schools. Open enrollment gives families choices within the traditional public school system by allowing them to send their children to their preferred public schools, rather than their residentially assigned ones. Some policies (i.e., intradistrict or within-district) allow students to transfer to other schools within their home district, while others (i.e., interdistrict or cross-district) allow them to transfer outside their home district to neighboring ones.
North Carolina is one of the few states without any sort of a statewide policy allowing open enrollment, despite the fact that polling suggests such a policy would be popular with families. A Carolina Journal poll released in January 2025 revealed that nearly three-quarters of respondents (72 percent) said they supported the concept of open enrollment, while only 21 percent said they were opposed.
In last year’s national ranking of every state’s open enrollment laws, North Carolina tied with Alaska, Maine, and Maryland for last place, with an overall score of 0/100. Over the past year, its ranking has not improved.
Three-quarters of K–12 students in North Carolina attend traditional public schools, yet very few of them have the option of choosing public schools other than their assigned ones. North Carolina should work toward providing more choices for families within the traditional public school system.
Oklahoma continues to lead the way on open enrollment
The Reason Foundation’s updated study indicates that 16 states have passed strong cross-district open enrollment policies, while 17 have passed strong within-district policies. Overall, more than 1.6 million students in 20 states used open enrollment to choose their public schools, according to the report. Participation was greater in states with stronger open enrollment laws.
As it did in 2024, Oklahoma continues to stand out for its strong stance on open enrollment. Oklahoma’s laws do a good job of providing more options for families within the public school system because they:
- Require all districts statewide to offer cross-district and within-district open enrollment
- Make traditional public schools free to all students (no transfer tuition)
- Open traditional public schools to all students throughout the state and prohibit districts from discriminating against transfer students based on ability or disability
- Require the state education agency to publish transparent reports each year so that parents and the public have ready access to key data
- Require school districts to report seat capacity by school and grade level, as well as other key information and data
- Allow families to appeal rejected transfer requests
Last year, Oklahoma strengthened its laws not only by instituting statewide within-district open enrollment but also by requiring its state department of education to publish a yearly report listing the numbers of approved and rejected transfer requests of students with disabilities. The legislation also requires the report to list the reasons for these denials and provides for a yearly random audit of the transfer requests of students with disabilities in 10 percent of districts.
The Reason Foundation notes that to strengthen its laws even further, Oklahoma could report trends in open enrollment over time to help policymakers and members of the public better see the scope and impact of the policy.
Efforts to pass open enrollment legislation in North Carolina have gained little traction
In 2025, North Carolina lawmakers introduced a bill on open enrollment. In its original form, the bill would have required all school districts in North Carolina to adopt policies allowing within-district transfers. It would have required all districts to post their plans, as well as monthly capacity information for each grade level, on their websites. Districts would have been permitted to deny transfer requests only for limited reasons, and transfer denials could have been appealed first to the local school board and then to the State Board of Education. According to the Reason Foundation’s report, the bill would have improved North Carolina’s open enrollment score by a significant 21 points.
Later in the session, however, a substitution from the House K–12 Education Committee turned the legislation into a study bill, which has passed the state House but remains stalled in the Senate. In its revised form, the bill would require the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction simply to study and report on how districts can implement within-district open enrollment.
Although a study bill would be a small step in the right direction, it is ultimately unnecessary because the experiences of several other states, including Wisconsin and Florida, clearly demonstrate the benefits that open enrollment provides for students, families, and even school districts themselves. They also provide examples of how to overcome logistical challenges to implement open enrollment effectively.
For more on open enrollment in North Carolina, see the following:
