The Walton-funded Center for Research on Education Outcomes published a study containing a finding that almost everyone knew:
The strategy of closing schools because of their test scores disproportionately affects children of color.
A little less than half of displaced closure students landed in better schools.
• Closures of low-performing schools were prevalent but not evenly distributed.
• In both the charter and traditional public school sectors, low-performing schools with a larger share
of black and Hispanic students were more likely to be closed than similarly performing schools with a
smaller share of disadvantaged minority students.
• Low-performing schools that were eventually closed exhibited clear signs of weakness in the years
leading to closure compared to other low-performing schools.
•The quality of the receiving school made a significant difference in post-closure student outcomes. Closure
students who attended better schools post-closure tended to make greater academic gains than did their
peers from not-closed low-performing schools in the same sector, while those ending up in worse or
equivalent schools had weaker academic growth than their peers in comparable low-performing settings.
• The number of charter closures was smaller than that of traditional public school closures, however, the percentage of low-performing schools getting closed was higher in the charter sector than in the traditional public school sector.
Peter Greene wrote about this study here. Peter asks: The staggering bottom line here remains– we are closing schools that serve black, brown and poor students because they serve black, brown and poor students. How is that even remotely okay?
Steven Singer wrote about it here.
This was Steven’s takeaway:
If Sally moves to School B after School A is closed, her success is significantly affected by the quality of her new educational institution. Students who moved to schools that suffered from the same structural deficiencies and chronic underfunding as did their original alma mater, did not improve. But students who moved to schools that were overflowing with resources, smaller class sizes, etc. did better. However, the latter rarely happened. Displaced students almost always ended up at schools that were just about as neglected as their original institution.
Even in the fleeting instances where students traded up, researchers noted that the difference between School A and B had to be massive for students to experience positive results.
Does that mean school closures can be a constructive reform strategy?
No. It only supports the obvious fact that increasing resources and providing equitable funding can help improve student achievement. It doesn’t justify killing struggling schools. It justifies saving them.
This study leaves the observer to wonder why so much money was spent by Arne Duncan, Michael Bloomberg, and Rahm Emanuel to disrupt schools instead of investing in improving them with proven strategies like class-size reduction?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The widespread segregation in our country and the abandonment of integration as a strategy to improve education for minority students make poor minority schools a target of takeover and privatization. The NAACP knows that separate is never equal, and this is why they have called for a moratorium on charter expansion. Privatization has led to segregation “on steroids.”
Amen!
Privatization will make IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) a thing of the past, as well.
I imagine that there are more than a few representatives in Congress who would see this as a desirable outcome.
So even by one of the most sacred “measures” that rheephorm has to offer, when you take other factors into consideration—
It turns out that money and qualified staff and teacher-student ratios and the like matter.
I am quite sure that everyone that visits “Diane Ravitch’s blog A site to discuss better education for all” is just shocked and amazed.
Shocked and amazed.
Rheeally! But not really…
😎
P.S.I can’t help but be reminded, on behalf of all suffering corporate education reform billionaires and hedge fund managers and enablers and enforcers, that have to suffer the indignity of sending their children to such dives as Lakeside School, that $tudent $ucce$$ is its own reward:
“Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you’re being miserable.” [Clare Booth Luce]
So hang on, buckaroos, and remind yourselves that this is just another rite of passage for those investing in, er, underwriting, er, selflessly donating to the “new civil rights movement of our time.”
🙄
P.P.S. And as another posting today on this blog reminds us, Betsy will always be there to hold your hands and comfort you while she sings the Beatles’ LET IT BE.
😏
This study aggregates data from 26 states. The demographics and size of the states when combined with the varying policies on school closure means that individual states could be skewing the data. It has happen before to other studies. For instance, the number of schools closed in each state is variable in ways not related to size – Minnesota closed almost as many schools New York. How do the demographics of these states affect the final figures? I hope the study authors recalculated with subsets of the states to ensure that bias is not present although I am unable to find reference to that.
I am concerned that, given the funding source of the study, the new push might be to shutter more schools in impoverished, white communities. Thar’s backpacks full of gold in them thar white neighborhoods decimated by tech and outsourcing.
And true progressive politicians in the Rust Belt could have a public relations field day heading off school closures at the pass.
Here’s a troubling quote from the “implications” section of the Executive Summary: “Closing chronically low-performing schools seems to be an inevitable option.”
“If you push something hard enough, it will fall over.”
Fudd’s Law
Firesign Theatre’s “I Think We’re All Bozos on this Bus”
The people who came up with these brilliant conclusions (that any high school sophomore who’d been displaced could have told them) were paid good money to do so.
It’s like a close reading exercise being done in real time.