Faced with enormous budgetary shortfalls, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) opted in May 2013 to close forty-seven schools, one of the largest instances of school closures in U.S. history. CPS then set about relocating more than ten thousand displaced students into higher-performing schools for the 2013–14 year. The district called the schools that absorbed the transplanted pupils “welcoming schools.” The policy was supported by research showing that students affected by closure benefit academically if they land in a better school. The welcoming schools were all higher-performing on CPS’s internal measures of performance; they also received additional resources to ease the influx of new students (e.g., pupil safety and instructional supports). So how did the policy play out? According to University of Chicago analysts, 66 percent of displaced students enrolled in their designated “welcoming school” in fall 2013, while 25 percent attended other neighborhood-based CPS schools, 4 percent enrolled in charters and a similar number in magnets. An analysis of student records indicates that distance from home, building safety concerns, and residential mobility were all significant reasons why one-third of the total went somewhere other than their welcoming school. Interesting, to be sure, but the study does not report anything about the academic results for CPS students in their new schools. (Stay tuned for a new Fordham study of how Ohio students fare after closure.) Overall, CPS crafted a reasonable though not perfectly implemented policy for reassigning students to better schools. While few places are apt to shutter schools on the scale of CPS, they could learn from Chicago’s experience—and perhaps improve upon it.
SOURCE: Marisa de la Torre, et al., “School Closings in Chicago: Understanding Families’ Choices and Constraints for New School Enrollment,” University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research (January 2015).
