Closing Schools

There are schools that need to be closed. They are toxic places when it comes to making kids smarter and stronger, especially black, brown, and poor kids.

When I started teaching in 1984 in the Houston public school system, there were at least 20-25 schools, elementary and secondary, in need of closing. Those schools weren’t places of learning. They didn’t teach kids to read, write, or problem-solve well. Had they been hospitals, they would have been closed for malpractice. If they were legal firms, their lawyers would have been disbarred.

Instead, when I retired from working in and with that same Houston public school system, those same 20-25 schools were still open for business – and they were still toxic when it came to making kids smarter and stronger.

Make no mistake about it, there are schools, in Houston and around the country, that need closing. But what happens is something like this – the school district announces to their stakeholders that certain schools will need to close – usually the district will use budget concerns as the reason – for the upcoming year (this usually happens a year or so before the planned closing), the school district meets with parents and communities who will be impacted by a closing to receive feedback (so the school district can say they included parents and communities in the decision-making process), the district’s school board votes on a resolution announcing the closing of certain schools, the school board begins to receive pressure from those parents and communities zoned to a closing schools about where their kids will attend school during the upcoming year or about keeping their school open, and then, because of parent, community, and sometimes media pressure, the school board backtracks and decides to keep the school open, even though it’s failing (mainly because there aren’t enough good schools in most districts – especially large districts – to offer families and communities a choice).

It’s a vicious cycle – one that keeps too many bad schools open. And it happens way too often.

Closing schools is always a story media outlets love to cover. Closing schools is emotional, controversial, and political – perfect ingredients to make an interesting news day.

Just last month, Robin Lake, the executive director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University, wrote an article titled “Lessons for Closing Schools: Face the Challenge, Prioritize Students, Be Honest.” Lake writes:

“Prompted by declining enrollment and the impending loss of federal pandemic relief funding, school districts nationwide are wrestling with whether to close schools – and, if so, how many. Seattle is weighing a plan to close a quarter of its elementary schools. Rochester, New York voted last fall to shut 11 of its 45 schools. San Antonio recently closed 13, with two more slated to shut their doors soon.”

“School closures are hardly new, but two factors make the current wave different. First, shifts to homeschooling and private schools during the pandemic exacerbated the trend of declining urban enrollment. Second, the loss of pandemic relief funds (the so-called fiscal cliff) finally forced districts to find ways to save money.”

“As communities across the country grapple with this challenge, my research team at the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) and I urge them to follow a handful of proven, evidence-based guidelines. These will help minimize the pain and maximize the possibility that more children will get a better education – which should be the ultimate goal.”

“First, don’t duck the challenge. If enrollment and funding are cratering, district leaders have no choice but to act. Children in underenrolled schools lose when they are denied services and activities, from music and art to libraries and sports, that should be a normal part of their education. Propping up underenrolled schools hurts all the other students in the district.”

“For example, Chicago, facing a $391 million budget deficit, plans to add nine staff members at one high school, meaning there will be 31 adults for just 35 enrolled students. Propping up a school like this forces others to make cuts. Seattle, which is debating massive closures, is not considering teacher layoffs; because staff salaries are by far the biggest cost factor in the budget, its school closure plan will resolve less than half of the district’s $129 million annual deficit.”

“Second, prioritize student well-being. Schools become underenrolled because families abandon them or their neighborhoods, and the remaining kids suffer. These children need much better options, not just a chance to move to a school that is slightly less underenrolled but is otherwise similar. In Oakland, California, the district created the Opportunity Ticket, which gave kids from closed schools in underserved communities priority enrollment in high-performing schools. Innovations like these should become the norm.”

“Third, be transparent, tell the truth and build trust. Closing decisions are fraught and require public trust to achieve the best possible outcomes for all stakeholders. Recently, Boston scaled back plans to close up to half of its schools, citing a lack of public support. Leaders should use enrollment, financial and achievement data to make the case for closure and demonstrate what better choices could look like. They also need to involve parents and other stakeholders. To the greatest extent possible, leaders should push decisions down to the school level so those on the ground – like principals, teachers, and other staffers – can make the best choices for students and resolve enrollment challenges, possibly by merging with other underenrolled schools. Baltimore, for example, has a tradition of school-based budgeting, which incentivizes this type of initiative at the school level. Principals and parent councils are in a better position than superintendents or school boards to lead difficult conversations about possible closures and consolidations.”

“Fourth, use the inevitability of closures to develop more flexible, resilient school systems. CRPE has argued that too many 21^st century systems remain bound by 19^th century constraints. These include a nine-month agrarian calendar that ensures school buildings are empty all summer, every weekend and after 4 p.m. on weekdays; union contracts that enshrine the model of one teacher alone in a classroom, fix class sizes and mandate arbitrary pay scales regardless of enrollment realities; and funding models in which the money follows adults, not kids.”

“A truly agile system would consider the reality that high school students should be learning in apprenticeships and taking college credits, not just sitting in a building all day. And school facilities should serve multiple community needs – from adult ed to libraries – and not be designed for part-time single uses. Teachers and students want more options when it comes to their schedules and prefer to work in team-based settings. A more dynamic approach to facilities planning can mitigate the pain of inevitable shifts in school-age populations with the resulting need to close some schools while expanding others. State and local policymakers should insist that districts facing closures restructure and retool to be more competitive and nimble for 21^st century realities.”

…

Although Lake doesn’t address this directly in her writing, make no mistake about it – school districts don’t close successful schools because of low enrollment. The schools Lake is talking about are the types of campuses described at the beginning of this article – toxic places that not only don’t make kids smarter and stronger, but, according to research, allows kids regress in their reading, writing, and problem-solving skills.

But the traditional system is stuck between a rock and hard place. In the end, they can’t close their bad schools and send those kids to better schools because they don’t have enough good schools to send them to.

So I’m afraid, even though Lake offers some really good coaching about how to effectively attempt to close schools, most school districts in the current traditional system will continue the vicious cycle of closing, and then not closing, really bad schools.

And who suffers for that?

Friday News Roundup tomorrow. Til then. SVB