Politics may be the only profession in which you are ridiculed for doing extra homework.Longtime legislator Tom Sawyer has been called “a stuffed shirt” and “excruciatingly careful” even by a newspaper (this one) that has endorsed him in virtually every race for the past 30 years.One of his “problems” is that he reads every word of every bill, does additional research, then carefully considers the ramifications. That doesn’t draw much attention in an era when your ticket to the airwaves is unleashing nasty sound bites about your opponents.Personally, I’ll take bookish. I’ll take cautious. If somebody is creating a law, I want that person to know exactly what’s going on and why. And if he needs a little extra time, so be it, because issues that seem relatively simple can grow tentacles a mile long.Example: Open enrollment in Ohio schools.Since open enrollment was created by the legislature in 1989 — supposedly as a two-year pilot project — the Beacon Journal has published nearly 2,000 stories containing the phrase. A policy passed quietly as part of a much larger bill now impacts almost every aspect of our public schools, from funding to sports, and also carries significant repercussions for private schools.Yet somehow the patchwork system has continued to roll merrily along without much introspection. Sawyer, a state senator from Akron, thinks it’s time for a closer look. So he has introduced a bill that would give the Department of Education a long-term homework assignment:Look at every aspect of open enrollment and tell us why it should be kept, and in what form. And if you can’t justify it, we will discontinue open enrollment as of July 1, 2015.Today, every public school system in Ohio is free to choose one of three options:• Allow anyone in the state to attend your school.• Limit outside enrollment to students who live in districts that touch your geographical boundaries.• Close your school to outsiders (as long as you allow your own students to leave).After 22 years of this, we now have, as Sawyer puts it, a series of “quasi doughnuts” superimposed over Ohio’s seven largest cities.In the center of the doughnut are schools with open enrollment. In the suburbs surrounding them, you see mostly closed enrollment. And once you get to the outlying areas, you generally find statewide open enrollment.The bill is “a way to light the fuse that [requires the Education Department to justify the current policy] or the whole thing’s going to end,” Sawyer says.“And frankly, maybe it shouldn’t end. But maybe it ought to be reviewed and understood before simply allowing it to continue without any thoughtful review and potential modification.”The idea of putting open enrollment under a microscope was one of many that emerged from the work of a state School Funding Advisory Council. Sawyer, a Democrat, was among the 28 members, as was Rep. Randy Gardner, a Republican. The others were a cross section of educators, administrators, parents, business folks and others.The recommendation to mandate a study of open enrollment was “nearly unanimous,” Sawyer says. Hence, Senate Bill 220, introduced last week.How might the system be altered if it is retained?“You may have noticed that I judiciously avoided prejudging them,” Sawyer says with a laugh.“As you can see from the Kelley Williams-Bolar case, this may look simple on the surface, but it is devilishly complex in reality, and it plays itself out in the real lives of real people in very difficult ways.“So trying to prejudge this ahead of time I think is a mistake. And that’s the reason I choose to handle it the way I do.”His way, as usual, is not a cursory, emotional glance, but a full-fledged study that will be “academic and data-driven.”Sawyer’s mention of Williams-Bolar is apropos, because initially she was painted as the poster child for school inequality. She wasn’t. But that certainly doesn’t mean Ohio’s current educational system doesn’t have enormous flaws. It does.And open enrollment is a huge piece of the puzzle.The legislature still can’t figure out how to fix a school-funding system that was declared unconstitutional in 1997. Maybe a study of open enrollment will finally lead to an answer.But the solution won’t come through sound bites.Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com.