Closing Schools: Privatization Disguised as ‘Accountability’
Closing public schools not only has a negative impact on student performance but also creates hardship for communities already struggling with disinvestment, according to Linda Darling-Hammond, who moderated one of two panels for a Congressional forum held on Dec. 10 at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C.
“If your only recourse for school challenges is closing schools then you are not figuring out strategies and building on what succeeds,” said Darling-Hammond, a faculty director at the Stanford University Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. “School closures seem to be the primary remedy for any sign of failure in a school.”
At the forum, “Closed for Learning: The Impact of School Closures on Students and Communities,” Darling-Hammond said mass closures reflect shortsighted policies rooted in punitive reform models such as the recently rewritten federal K-12 education law, No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
“NCLB has contributed to widespread school closings across the country because it required schools to be ranked by test scores,” Darling-Hammond said. “We need a new approach to accountability that uses assessment for improvements to build professionalism and capacity.”
Federal and state policy decisions increasingly emphasize closings as an accountability measure for schools where standardized test results are low.
But public schools are much more than that, panelists said.
Aside from an academic setting, school buildings are hosts to a variety of education, social, business, and civic activities. Shutting them down has a ripple effect that can lead to a systematic disinvestment of other community institutions such as public housing units, recreational facilities, and small businesses.
“When they close schools, they are closing hospitals, grocery stores, and police stations,” said Jitu Brown, national director of the Journey for Justice Alliance (J4JL), an organization of community, youth and parent-led groups based in more than 20 cities. “There is something wrong with a system that blames children.”
Brown said that an inordinately high (90 percent in some areas) percentage of school closings impact predominately African-American and low-income communities.
“This is a human rights issue,” he said. “It’s about equity.”
The worsening inequality across the nation indicates that access to academically sound schools is often dependent on a student’s ZIP code. Policies that promote residential mobility while also reinvesting in racially segregated and high-poverty neighborhoods are critical to reducing inequality, Brown added.
Julian Vasquez Heilig discusses the impact of school closures on students and communities at a recent Capitol Hill forum.
“A society that doesn’t take care of its children is a morally bankrupt society,” said Judith Browne-Dianis, co-director ofAdvancement Project (AP), a civil rights organization. “School closings are not isolated incidents but rather a movement toward privatization.”
Analyses by J4JL and AP reveal that since about 2000, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has closed, phased-out, or consolidated about 160 schools and adopted policies that have promoted a proliferation of charter and contract schools in the West and South Closing Schools: Privatization Disguised as 'Accountability' - NEA Today:
