When it comes to where kids go to school, zip code is usually destiny, especially for poor families without the economic means to move.

Where you live generally determines where your kids go to school. Most schools have an "attendance area" that defines where your kids can go. Try to enroll them elsewhere and you could end up in jail.

Residential property values can be very sensitive to differences in school reputation. This fact is not lost on real estate professionals, who are attuned to the local rules for determining school attendance areas. Changes in those rules can have a direct impact on housing values, especially at the high end. High-quality schools and high-value housing go together like bees and honey. According to research by the St. Louis Federal Reserve, the effect of school quality on real estate is non-linear; when a school is perceived as excellent, the value of homes in its attendance area rises quite significantly.

GreatSchools.org, in partnership with Zillow.com, may be able to show you the attendance areas associated with schools of interest to you. The numbers on this map reflect the GreatSchools rating of each school. Click to visit the site.

Wealthy families, almost by definition, enjoy a choice of schools for their children. If they are dissatisfied, they can pack up and move to a home near a school they prefer. Money can buy choice.

Not all schools have rigid attendance areas.

Yes, charter schools also have district-wide attendance boundaries – more on those in Lesson 5.5

School boards set the rules that govern where kids are assigned to go to school. Although most schools have rigid attendance boundaries based on the street address where kids live, school districts are not required to take this approach; for example, they can establish a process to give parents influence over where their kids are assigned. These approaches are often known as school choice systems.

The earliest school choice systems were exceptions. For example, in the 1960s some school districts began creating magnet schools in high-poverty neighborhoods. These schools were meant to attract enrollment by offering something different and attractive — most commonly an unusually rigorous curriculum, or a curriculum oriented toward a particular interest such as art or science. After rapid initial growth, such schools settled to less than 1.5% of California enrollment by 2014.

The state also includes a small number of selective public exam schools (nine, by one estimate). These schools define their attendance area broadly, accepting applicants from throughout their sponsoring district based on grades and test scores. San Francisco's Lowell High School is a prominent example. Other public schools in California with a selective admission process include the Los Angeles School of the Arts and Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco, both of which have portfolio and audition elements.

Dual enrollment

Another attractive option for many high school students is dual enrollment, which allows them to take college level classes while enrolled in high school. Students can earn credits towards their high school diploma, but they can also earn credits for their undergraduate degree. Dual enrollment has been growing in popularity due to its benefit of offering high school students a head start in their college career. High school students participate in almost 14% of all California Community College courses. With the passing of Assembly Bill 288 in 2016, the College and Career Pathways Partnership Act, dual enrollment became more accessible to students. There is a lot of information on the models of dual enrollment, but the main ideas are:

• Better prepared. Students in dual enrollment programs have higher rates of high school graduation, college enrollment, college continuation, and career preparedness.
• Must be free. Traditional dual enrollment courses, often on college campuses/online, can charge students for enrollment and materials. If classes are offered through high school campuses, they must be free.
• Racial disparities. There are still significant racial disparities that exist in dual enrollment participation. Latinx and Black students are inequitably represented in different dual enrollment programs, tend to have lower dual enrollment GPAs, and tend to get fewer units than their white and Asian counterparts.
• Additional funding. K-12 schools receive funding for dual enrollment students enrolled in 180+ minutes of high school coursework, an hour less than the standard requirement. Community colleges can operate in high school campuses and receive funding for doing so.

Giving more parents a choice

School choice systems have grown far beyond the early exceptions. For example, charter schools (discussed in Lesson 5.5) do not have attendance boundaries other than the school district itself. Any student residing within the district may enroll.

Many school districts have also eliminated or softened attendance boundaries to offer more choice. School choice systems can take many forms, and there is an unavoidable element of luck involved. Some schools tend to be more popular than others, and school districts need to allocate school "seats" in ways that are seen as legitimate. Many school districts that offer school choices ask parents to enroll their children using a ranked-choice lottery process.

These school choice systems tend to become complex for legitimate reasons. For example, the process often includes preferences to help families enroll siblings at the same school if they prefer it. Or to give families a better chance of attending their nearest school.

School enrollment systems must include processes to handle changes and exceptions. For example, if a family moves or is evicted, where do the kids go to school? In school districts that include many non-traditional schools, such as public charter schools or private schools, enrollment processes can take on an extra level of complexity. Families might try their luck at enrolling their children in multiple school lotteries. The results can take time to shake out.

In order to reduce the complexity for everyone involved, some school districts create a single public school choice process involving both traditional and charter schools. For example, the school choice process in Oakland Unified takes this approach, combining the enrollment process for all local public schools including charter schools.

Transfers are rare, but possible

In California, state law allows students to transfer to a regular public school outside of their local district, if both districts agree to it. For example, in certain circumstances, a parent's place of work may be used as a basis for a student to attend a school. The state education code specifies that working parents have a right to enroll their children in the district where their workplace is located under certain conditions, but under most circumstances both the sending and receiving district must agree to the transfer.

For a few years, California's Open Enrollment law provided students enrolled in any of the state's 1,000 lowest-scoring schools with the right to transfer to any higher-scoring school, if seats were available. Over twenty states have such open enrollment policies. California's open enrollment law is currently dormant for technical reasons: the law was written in a way that relied on the existence of the Academic Performance Index (API), a measure that has been eliminated.

Choice can contribute to segregation

When parents have a choice of schools for their children, how do they choose? In the early days of the school choice movement, many expected that parents would abandon low-scoring schools, flocking to better ones and in the process leading to more integration.

In practice, there is evidence that school choice systems may tend to make schools somewhat more segregated rather than less. Parents may prefer one school over another for all kinds of reasons, from ambition to proximity to a feeling of "fit." For example, if a school community builds a reputation for being welcoming to Latinx families, it makes sense that Latinx families might choose it. If a school has a teacher who can teach Japanese, it makes sense that families of Japanese descent would choose it.

The biggest real-world test of the connection between choice and segregation comes from New Orleans, which implemented a massive school choice program in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Writing for the Brown Center Chalkboard, Tulane University researcher Lindsay Bell Wexler summarizes the findings:

Is School Choice Bad?

Some argue that offering parents a choice of schools is the wrong goal, and not necessarily a good thing on its own. Ed100 writer Carol Kocivar explores this question in an online video debate about school choice.

"Often forgotten in the policy debates," argues Peter Cookson of the Learning Policy Institute, "are the fundamental questions of whether and how choice influences access to high-quality schools for all students, and whether, in our diverse democracy that requires common ground, choices promote or undermine integration".

In the next few lessons, we'll look at some of the other ways that students are placed in schools and into classrooms.

Updated June 2017
Updated December 2018
Updated August 2022