Closing Schools Makes No Sense …for Children
Hillary Rodham Clinton has attracted a lot of attention recently for making a bold statement about closing schools that were performing “below average,” saying: “I wouldn’t keep any school open that wasn’t doing a better-than-average job.”US News & World Report rushed to Clinton’s defense, claiming her words were “taken out of context.” You can read the article and make up your own mind, but I think all of this commentary is missing the larger point around Ms. Clinton’s remarks.
Hillary, in suggesting that the solution to poorly performing students is simply closing schools, is merely following what has become a common trope in the corporate education reform community–the notion that “the problems” in education can be solved simply by, variously, “getting rid of the bad teachers“, converting public schools to charter schools,raising standards, or increasing the amount of standardized testing for students. Much of this rhetoric chooses to ignore the role that the corporate reform agenda itself has played in contributing to “the problems” in education, but that’s an issue for another post.
Whenever I hear public officials and education policy decision makers suggest that closing schools is a legitimate strategy, I know that person is not serious about actually improving educational outcomes.
Whenever I hear public officials and education policy decision makers suggest that closing schools is a legitimate strategy, I know that person is not serious about actually improving educational outcomes.
Whenever I hear public officials and education policy decision makers suggest that closing schools is a legitimate strategy, I know that person is not serious about actually improving educational outcomes. The decision to close a school is not made to improve student learning, or to increase the effectiveness of teachers. Put simply, closing a school is a business decision. School closings are a strategy lifted from the “creative destruction” school of thought championed by economists like Joseph Schumpeter, and vulture capitalists such as Mitt Romney. The goal is to maximize financial resources, sell off existing assets, and provide an attractive return to one’s investors.
For these reasons, we tend to see more school closings in the charter school sector, especially for-profit charters–some for financial mismanagement, others for low enrollment, and still others for…more nefarious reasons. Now, while I’m no fan of for-profit charters, I still don’t believe that closing these Closing Schools Makes No Sense …for Children - LA Progressive:
