By Jake Logan and Nina Rees
Arizona classes are back in session.
For parents of the more than 1.1 million Arizona students enrolled in a public school, it’s hard to imagine that less than a generation ago, the decision about where your child would attend school was made for you, not by you.
Indeed, many of us are old enough to remember a time when school assignment was dictated not by a student’s needs, but by the neighborhood in which his or her parents could afford to live.
In Arizona, that was the reality until 1994 when Arizona enacted charter school legislation. Together with the adoption of district open enrollment, the statutory changes affirmed a simple principle: Parents know best when it comes to picking the right school for their child.