School Closure as a Strategy to Remedy Low Performance

Policy Brief - May 18, 2017

Author(s) - Gail L. Sunderman, University of Maryland; Erin Coghlan, University of California Berkeley; and Rick Mintrop, University of California Berkeley.

Closing a “low-performing” school and sending students to a “better-performing” one has been offered as a school improvement strategy, which the logic suggests will motivate schools to improve. A new policy brief released today investigates whether closing schools is an option that policymakers should pursue. According to the brief, the limited evidence base suggests that school closures are not a promising strategy for remedying low performance. The authors write, “School closures have at best weak and decidedly mixed benefits; at worst they have detrimental repercussions for students if districts do not ensure that seats at higher-performing schools are available for transfer students.”