Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: School closings could do educational harm to thousands of students

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: School closings could do educational harm to thousands of students:

School closings could do educational harm to thousands of students

by Mike Klonsky

Stockton Elementary School on the North Side is one of 129 CPS grade schools still being considered for closing. (Jose M. Osorio, Chicago Tribune)

Despite the claims by some Chicago education and political leaders that mass school closings will boost student learning outcomes, closing schools usually does little to raise so-called "student achievement" levels and in many cases actually cause great harm.

That's true for three reasons. First, closing thousands of schools, as mandated under Race To The Top, increases mobility rates, causes even greater instability in children's lives, especially in the lives of the poorest