“If I can look at your zip code and I can tell whether you’re going to get a good education, we’ve got a real problem,” Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said in 2012, echoing a common sentiment that was at the heart of the last wave of education reform in the early 2000s. Now, more than a decade later, there’s further evidence that the country is ready to move on from zip code-based education.

Writing for Education Next, Jude Schwalbach documents the changing landscape: “K–12 open enrollment is rising in popularity across the nation, and 73 percent of school parents support it. As of 2023, 43 states permit or mandate some degree of open enrollment, but only 16 states have strong open-enrollment laws. Since 2021, 10 states have significantly improved their open-enrollment laws. For example, Idaho’s new law requires all school districts to participate in open enrollment and also establishes better program transparency.”

One potential reason why this intriguing trend isn’t being widely reported? A lack of open data. Schwalbach found that only three states–Wisconsin, Arizona and Florida–are transparently sharing the number of students and families selecting a different school from their assigned one. Even with a limited data set, however, the results are striking: the number of families that are choosing different districts or schools through open enrollment matches the number of families choosing charters or ESA-enabled private schools, and students tend to move to the best performing districts and leave the worst.

Moving forward, Schwalbach suggests that policymakers focus on transportation, arguing that the “big yellow school bus” needs to be replaced with passenger vans, based on successful pilots in Arizona. There’s also consistent and troubling data on districts rejecting transfer applications from students with disabilities, despite this being against the law, with loopholes that need to be closed.

• The task this week is to advocate for states transparently sharing their open enrollment numbers and to encourage policymakers to examine the Arizona, Florida and Wisconsin models to see what’s possible.

Last autumn, we covered the efforts of Carnegie Foundation President Tim Knowles’ efforts to usher in a new era of teaching and learning by shifting the acquisition of the Carnegie Unit from “seat time” to a demonstration of mastery and competence. It’s a shift that sounds small but will have far-reaching implications for new approaches to schooling that will allow families to build the education their children receive from a menu of options–a policy package the team at Bellwether refers to as Assembly.

Now, the next strategic step in the process is on the horizon, with the 74 Million reporting on a partnership between Carnegie and ETS, which manages the GRE and PRAXIS exams, on creating new competency-based assessments. A multi-state pilot, utilizing the new tests, is set to begin early next year.

The assessments themselves could be part of a big change to the student experience. Markhar also surmises that mastery-based assessments could affect not just the K-12 experience, but the college experience as well: “The ETS-Carnegie proposal is also emerging at a time when traditional high school admissions exams, such as the SAT and ACT, have lost significant market share. Both the aftereffects of the pandemic and concerns about inequitable outcomes from standardized testing have led thousands of colleges and universities to go test-optional in the last few school years. With those leading indicators of secondary achievement potentially passing from the scene, demand is expected to rise for measures that could take their place.”

• The task this week is to prepare for an education system that measures teaching and learning in a significantly different way than in the past.

DelawareCAN closed their legislative session on a win, securing $3 million for the recruitment and training of literacy instructors.

ConnCAN Executive Director Steve Hernández has been appointed by the Connecticut State Board of Education to the Reading Council, the key decision-making body for implementing the state’s transition to literacy instruction grounded in the science of reading. The move places ConnCAN at the center of a big push to deliver on the promise of universal literacy in the Constitution State.

Amanda Aragon, executive director of NewMexicoKidsCAN, was featured on the Brandon Vogt Show on KKOB Radio to discuss New Mexico’s state assessment results.

Ophelia Nnorom, a GeorgiaCAN parent fellow from Clayton County, contributed her voice to a Journal-Constitution piece examining school choice as an emerging political priority for the upcoming collection.

The Freedom Coalition for Charter Schools, a build in the 50CAN network, polled Black and Latino voters across multiple swing states, finding 91% want school choice.