Last month, D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced her plan to close 20 traditional D.C. public schools before the beginning of the next school year. This plan is estimated to displace approximately 3,000 students across six of the city’s eight wards. Henderson’s reasoning behind the closures is that a consolidation of schools will strengthen DCPS by redirecting funds from the maintenance of under-enrolled schools to the improvement of academic programs.
Due to a confluence of factors, including gentrification and the increased popularity of charter schools, many D.C. public schools have been left with fewer students and underutilized, decaying infrastructure. MacFarland Middle School in Petworth, for example, one of the two middle schools identified for closure, currently operates at one-third capacity. While Henderson’s plan makes sense from an economic perspective, it fails to recognize the significant negative educational and social effects the school closures will have on students and families.
First of all, the detrimental effects of the closures will be concentrated in the District’s most underprivileged areas. Henderson’s plan mostly affects elementary schools in the relatively less affluent Northeast and Southeast, and it will leave Ward 7 with only one middle school.
Unlike her predecessor Michelle Rhee, who left empty many of the 23 schools she closed in 2008, Chancellor Henderson plans to repurpose many of the closed schools into community centers. While this is commendable, closing 20 schools will nevertheless deprive each surrounding community of a locus of vibrant, healthy activity. Georgetown’s D.C. Reads program, for example, which works with three of the schools slated to be shut down, has cultivated meaningful relationships with the communities surrounding those schools. Taking away the positive influence radiated by local public schools will severely weaken these neighborhoods.
Chancellor Henderson has also expressed that schools which are not repurposed could be rented out to independently-run charter schools. Although this would keep school facilities within the District’s school system, it would perpetuate the unfortunate trend of exclusive charters replacing supposedly equal-opportunity traditional public schools. There is evidence that this pattern was exacerbated by the Rhee closures four years ago, which led to a loss of enrollment costing DCPS about $5 million in 2009. D.C. charter schools now enroll more than 40 percent of students, compared to 31 percent five years ago.
Critics of Henderson speculate the announced school closures would just serve to decrease enrollment in the long run. It is unclear whether or not this is realistic, given that Henderson has provided no estimates of how much money would be redirected as a result of the school closings. Unfortunately, no mention has been made about the employee layoffs that would accompany the closures, either.
Clearly, the District’s plan to close so many of its schools promises to leave students and communities significantly worse off. We understand the need to reconfigure the D.C. public education system, but we sincerely urge Chancellor Henderson to reconsider her approach.
