Predicting School Closures in an Era of Austerity: The Case of Chicago

Abstract

What factors do administrators consider when (dis)investing in public facilities? We model school closure decisions in Chicago from 2003 to 2013 with multinomial logit models that estimate the decision to close or “turnaround” schools as a function of building, student, geographic, political, and neighborhood factors during two mayoral administrations. The results from our specifications validate the “official” rationale for closures and turnarounds: Low test scores are associated with closures and turnarounds under Mayor Daley, and underutilization is associated with closures under Mayor Emanuel. However, our findings also reveal some distance between technical-rational decision making and the realities of capital budgeting under austerity. The race of students and proximity to both the Central Business District and charter schools also predicted closures. This suggests multiple, potentially conflicting, interests that school districts balance to serve the needs of school-age populations and taxpayers and also the potential for burdening already vulnerable populations with the negative effects of disinvestment.

Rethinking the School Closure Research: School Closure as Spatial Injustice

“…While researchers have paid much attention to academic accountability as a motivation for closure-and several studies focused specifically on schools closed due to low performance (Han et al, 2017;A. W. Johnson, 2012;Stuit, 2012;Subramaniam, 2011;Weber, Farmer, & Donoghue, 2018)-academic performance is rarely the sole explanation for closure. Officials usually justified recent urban closures with a combination of cost efficiency and academic performance arguments.…”

“…States and districts have pressed local schools to determine the best use of building space in tight urban environments (Deeds & Pattillo, 2015;de la Torre & Gwynne, 2009;Dowdall & Warner, 2013;Finnigan & Lavner, 2012;T. L. Green, 2017;Meiners, 2016;Ozek, Hansen, & Gonzalez, 2012;Sunderman & Payne, 2009;Weber et al, 2018), leading district officials to examine building usage to identify and close underutilized sites (Finnigan & Lavner, 2012;Weber et al, 2018).…”

“…In addition to the federal, state, and local policies directly leading to closure, numerous other policies and processes have likely triggered closure more indirectly or incidentally. Several researchers linked charter school policies to urban closures (Steggert & Galletta, 2018;Waitoller & Super, 2017;Weber et al, 2018), though no study has established a clear causal relationship, possibly due to the variety of other circumstances surrounding closures. But growth in charter schools can reduce enrollment in traditional public schools, thereby prompting closures; researchers argued that this dynamic played into closures in Philadelphia, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Washington D.C., Chicago, New York City, and Detroit (Dowdall, 2011;Farmer et al, 2013;Garnett, 2014;Lipman, Vaughan, & Gutierrez, 2014;Jack & Sludden, 2013; Journey for Justice Alliance, 2014; Meiners, 2016;Weiss & Long, 2013).…”

School Closures in Chicago: What Happened to the Teachers?

“…In October 2012, CPS released a set of rough guidelines outlining the district’s policy for school closures, consolidations, reassignments, and phaseouts. Soon after, the district formed an independent commission that established a set of criteria for school closures (Weber et al, 2016). Three hundred thirty schools were initially identified for closure because of underenrollment.…”

This land was (not) made for you and me

“…My own research on school closures in the United States see echoes of these discursive strategies and logics (Weber et al, 2018). Challenged for providing poor education, public school districts and city governments encouraged the creation of quasi-private ‘charter’ schools in the 2000s that, without public sector unions, were perceived as being more efficient and responsive to student needs.…”