Faced with enormous budgetary shortfalls, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) voted in May 2013 to close forty-seven schools, one of the largest waves of school closings in U.S. history. Shortly thereafter, CPS adopted a policy aimed at relocating more than ten thousand displaced students into higher-performing CPS schools for the 2013—14 school year. The district called the schools that absorbed displaced students “welcoming schools.” This 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., student safety and instructional supports). But how did the policy play out? Did displaced students actually enroll in their assigned welcoming school? According to University of Chicago researchers, 66 percent of displaced students enrolled in their welcoming school in fall 2013. Meanwhile, 25 percent of displaced students attended other neighborhood-based CPS schools, while 4 percent attended a charter and 4 percent attended a magnet school. An analysis of student records indicates that distance from home, building safety concerns, and residential mobility were all significant reasons why students did not attend their welcoming school. (Parent interviews also highlighted some of the issues in choosing a post-closure school.) The study does not report the academic results for CPS students post-closure. (Stay tuned for a new Fordham report in March on how Ohio students fare after closure.) Overall, CPS crafted a reasonable though not perfectly implemented policy for reassigning students to better schools. While Ohio’s district and charter sectors aren’t likely to have a mass closure on the scale of CPS, they could learn from Chicago’s experience—and even improve upon it.
Source: Marisa de la Torre, et al., School Closings in Chicago: Understanding Families’ Choices and Constraints for New School Enrollment (Chicago: University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research, January 2015)
