Do Student Outcomes Depend on Which Schools Are Closed in a Shrinking District?

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In the last decade, many cities around the country have needed to close schools due to declining enrollments and low achievement. School closings raise concerns about the possible negative impacts on student achievement, neighborhoods, families, and teaching staff. This study, published in Journal of Urban Economics examines an anonymous urban district that, faced with declining enrollment, chose to make student achievement a major criterion in determining which schools would be closed. The district targeted low-performing schools in its closure plan, and sought to move their students to higher-performing schools.

The authors estimated the impact of school closures on student test scores and attendance rates by comparing the growth of these measures among students differentially affected by the closures. They used residential assignment to school as an instrument to address non-random sorting of students into new schools. They also statistically control for the contemporaneous effects of other reforms within the district.

Results show that students displaced by school closures can experience adverse effects on test scores and attendance, but these effects can be minimized when students move to schools that are higher-performing (in value-added terms). Moreover, the negative effect on attendance disappears after the first year in the new school. Meanwhile, they found no adverse effects on students in the schools that are receiving the transferring students.

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