Few decisions by a school district are more controversial than the decision to close a school. School staff, students and their families, and even the local community all bear a substantial burden once the decision is made to close a school. Since 2001, Chicago Public Schools (cps) has closed 44 schools for reasons of poor academic performance or underutilization. Despite the attention that school closings have received in the past few years, very little is known about how displaced students fare after their schools are closed. This report examines the impact that closing schools had on the students who attended these schools. The authors focus on regular elementary schools that were closed between 2001 and 2006 for underutilization or low performance and ask whether students who were forced to leave these schools and enroll elsewhere experienced any positive or negative effects from this type of school move. They look at a number of student outcomes, including reading and math achievement, special education referrals, retentions, summer school attendance, mobility, and high school performance. They also examine characteristics of the receiving schools and ask whether differences in these schools had any impact on the learning experiences of students who transferred into them. The authors report six major findings: (1) Most students who transferred out of closing schools reenrolled in schools that were academically weak; (2) The largest negative impact of school closings on students' reading and math achievement occurred in the year before the schools were closed; (3) Once students left schools slated for closing, on average the additional effects on their learning were neither negative nor positive; (4) Although the school closing policy had only a small overall effect on student test scores, it did affect summer school enrollment and subsequent school mobility; (5) When displaced students reached high school, their on-track rates to graduate were no different than the rates of students who attended schools similar to those that closed; and (6) The learning outcomes of displaced students depended on the characteristics of receiving schools. Overall, they found few effects, either positive or negative, of school closings on the achievement of displaced students. Appended are: (1) School Closings and New Openings; and (2) Data, Analytic Methods, and Variables Used. (Contains 5 tables, 12 figures and 53 endnotes.)[For the (What Works Clearinghouse (wwc) Quick Review of this report, see ed510790.].
D.C. charter schools strengthening monitoring and process when schools close could improve accountability and ease student transitions: report to congressional...
Response to Declining Enrollment: School-closing in Suburbia
"An ... autobiographical picture book about a young African American girl who lived during the shutdown of public schools in Farmville, Virginia, following the landmark civil rights case Brown vs.
And yet, little is known about their impacts on American democracy. Closed for Democracy is the first book to systematically study the political causes and democratic consequences of mass public school closures in the United States.
"Failing schools. Underprivileged schools. Just plain bad schools." That's how Eve L. Ewing opens Ghosts in the Schoolyard: describing Chicago Public Schools from the outside.
See Karen Gross, “We Are Messing Up by not Thinking Through School Closure Issues, Medium, March 12, 2020, https://medium. com/age-of-awareness/were-messing-up-by-not-thinking-through-school-closures ...
See Breakaway learners Walls, Jeannette, 27n16 Walsh, Bari, 79n12 Walsh, Janet, 157n1 Walt Disney Company, 128 Walton, Gregory M., 43n11 Warhol, Andy, 109 Washington, DC, absenteeism in schools, 80, 81 Washington State, ...
... Language Standards in Grades 6–8 Sean Ruday Writing Behind Every Door: Common Core Writing in the Content Areas Heather Wolpert-Gawron Rebuilding Research Writing: Strategies for Sparking Informational Inquiry Nanci Werner-Burke, ...
When Parochial Schools Close: A Study in Educational Financing
Reopening K-12 Schools During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Prioritizing Health, Equity, and Communities provides guidance on the reopening and operation of elementary and secondary schools for the 2020-2021 school year.