1. United States
2. Mo.
3. Letter

I strongly oppose SB971 (Trent), SB906 (Gregory), HB2604 (Pollitt), HB3391 (Parker), and SB1496 (Gregory), the proposed “Public School Open Enrollment Act”. While framed as a program to expand parental choice, this legislation represents a direct threat to the foundation of our public education system and will exacerbate inequality for our most vulnerable students. The most significant flaw in this bill is its creation of a funding structure that diverts desperately needed resources away from our public schools. By allowing state funds to follow the student to a non-resident district or charter school, we are not adding money to the system; we are simply reshuffling it. This creates winners and losers based on a family’s ability to navigate the application and transportation logistics, not on educational need. Resident districts, which must maintain buildings, staff, and programs, will be left with budget shortfalls as per-pupil funding is pulled away, forcing them to cut essential services for the students who remain. This is a recipe for destabilizing school districts that are already operating on tight budgets, harming the majority of students to serve a select few. This program is a clear step toward privatization. It treats education as a commodity and families as consumers in a marketplace, rather than treating our public schools as a common good. The emphasis on "curriculum options that align with the parents' personal beliefs" opens the door to further division and could undermine the teaching of broadly accepted academic standards. It weakens the community bonds that are built when neighbors attend their local public school. The bill’s implementation timeline only worsens these concerns. It creates an unfunded mandate for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to develop and maintain a complex application and lottery system. Administrative costs that should go to classrooms will instead be spent on managing a transfer program. The provisions for students with special needs, while present, add another layer of complexity and cost for families, making it more difficult for them to navigate the system and access appropriate services in a new district. Finally, the bill's oversight mechanisms are insufficient. The requirement to study "racially segregative impact" only after implementation is a recipe for disaster. We know from the experiences of other states that open enrollment programs can lead to increased racial and socioeconomic isolation, as families with resources and information are better positioned to take advantage of choice programs. This bill fails to proactively prevent such outcomes and instead offers only a retrospective study. We should be focusing our energy and resources on fully funding our neighborhood public schools so they can provide a high-quality education for every child, regardless of their background or zip code. Please oppose this misguided and damaging legislation.