Black children deserve the stability that their neighborhood schools can offer, despite studies that may indicate otherwise
School closure is a tactic we don’t have to take.
Under the new national education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, states have been freed to employ strategies they deem fit just as long as they act on the bottom five percent.
When we’re talking about improving urban districts, though, we always seem to land on the “solution” of closing them.
Black communities are constantly losing the anchor institutions we actually need strengthened.
Within those very districts, there are schools that offer somewhat of a model. The elements that make those schools successful can be replicated in others if we valued the teachers and leaders enough to build their capacity. We build people’s capacity when we believe they can improve.
The Education Research Alliance of Tulane University released “Extreme Measures: When and How School Closures and Charter Takeovers Benefit Students” earlier this month.
The study examined the effects of school closures in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana from 2008 to 2014 to show that school closures can have positive effects on student outcomes.
“What gets measured gets done.” If research never leaves the confines of the “gap-closing” framework, “growth” will always burden black families – not the institutions that caused inequities in the first place. Being compared to whites, which gap-closing work and research constantly reinforces, insidiously assumes that white institutions and people are not problems to be solved.
Join the conversation later on Andre Perry’s radio show, “Free College,” hosted Tuesdays on WBOK1230 in New Orleans at 3pm Central/4pm Eastern 504.260.9265.
Many other urban districts including Newark, Oakland and Philadelphia have used school closure as an approach to improve overall performance while reducing the number of ineffective institutions.
The theory is if you close failing schools and move students into better ones you’ll get better educational options and eventually outcomes.
There are many ways to close schools and various reasons why. The most extreme kind of closure is to completely shutter a building. In August, Michigan school officials warned they might shutter schools Black children deserve the stability that their neighborhood schools can offer, despite studies that may indicate otherwise - The Hechinger Report:
