(The Center Square) – Open enrollment laws for North Carolina’s 1.5 million schoolchildren are as bad as any in America, says a new analysis.
Transparency from the Department of Public Instruction and individual school districts is lacking, says report author Jude Schwalbach of the Reason Foundation. Public Schools Without Boundaries 2025, released Thursday, dives into seven areas of open enrollment for each state and offers developments related to open enrollment.
Scoring for a possible 100 points perfect score was in statewide cross-district open enrollment (60 points); statewide within-district open enrollment (15); children have free access to all public schools (10); public schools open to all students (5); transparent state reporting on transfers (4); transparent district reporting on transfers (4); and transfer applicants able to appeal rejected applications (2). Partial scoring was considered.
North Carolina had zero points and a letter grade of F. Alaska, Maine and Maryland also failed to score.
“The Tarheel State does not have any codified open enrollment options,” Schwalbach wrote in the report. “The state education agency doesn’t publish any information on transfer students, and school districts aren’t required to post their open enrollment policies and procedures or their available capacity by grade level on their websites. School districts aren’t stopped from charging transfers tuition.
“Moreover, the state law doesn’t stop school districts from selecting students based on their ability or disability. Denied applicants are not guaranteed an appeal to a nondistrict entity. Parents who falsify their address for unsanctioned student transfers can be incarcerated for up to 120 days and fined at the court’s discretion.”
Taxpayers provide more money for education than any other part of the state budget. For fiscal year 2024-25, the figure was $17.9 billion. First-term Democrat Mo Green is the elected superintendent leading the Department of Public Instruction. The state has about 90,000 public school educators.
The Reason Foundation is a Libertarian think tank. It promotes liberty, free markets and the rule of law.
Earlier this year, North Carolina was 12th in the 2025 Education Freedom Report produced by the American Legislative Exchange Council. Measurements are not apples to apples with Reason. There, North Carolina scored an F for open enrollment but snagged an A for education freedom programs, B for charter schools and C for each of homeschooling and virtual schooling.
The appropriation of $463 million to the Opportunity Scholarship program became law Nov. 20 when the General Assembly rejected a gubernatorial veto. This move cleared a waiting list of about 55,000 students.
Universal school choice – North Carolina became the 10th state to implement, and first without a state government Republican trifecta – was enacted Oct. 3, 2023, as part of the 2023 Appropriations Act. Also known as the state budget, it became law after a 10-day period without then-Gov. Roy Cooper signing it. The biennial spending plan was also tied to expansion of Medicaid.
