Does closing schools close doors? The effect of high school closings on achievement and attainment

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of high school closures on student achievement and educational attainment. Previous studies primarily focus on effects of elementary school closings on test scores. This study furthers the literature by focusing on high school closures and examines several measures of achievement and attainment. I utilize student data from the Milwaukee Public School district and follow five freshman cohorts through high school. I find that school closings cause a negative shock to student attendance. Importantly, these closures also have long-run consequence both lowering the probability of high school graduation and college attendance.

Introduction

School closures are common across the United States, yet they remain controversial. The Chicago and Philadelphia school districts made headlines recently after announcing the closure of 47 and 23 schools respectively, some of the largest single closures in US history.¹ Across the United States, 1573 schools closed between the 2013–14 and the 2014–15 academic years forcing more than 200,000 students to change schools (Digest of Education Statistics, 2016). Announcements of these closures are almost always met with strong opposition from parents, students, teachers, and administrators alike. Parents worry what the change will mean for their children, students are concerned with being separated from the friends, teachers, and community they have grown comfortable with, and educators worry about both their students and their jobs (Lipman & Person, 2007). Even affiliates of non-closed schools may worry about the potential consequences of a sudden flow of new students to their schools and classrooms. While almost everyone worries about the burden that school closings will place on them, empirical research into the effects of closures is relatively new. In this paper I contribute to that literature by estimating the effects of high school closures on the achievement and educational attainment of the affected students.

School closures can occur for a variety of reasons, and often for several reasons simultaneously. Most closures are the result of some combination of budget problems, poor academic performance, and under-utilization (under-enrollment). The role of fiscal stress may be especially important in districts where many schools are under-utilized and economies of scale are not taken advantage of. By closing schools districts can redistribute the savings to the remaining schools, theoretically resulting in more efficiency and better quality schools.

Even without fiscal or enrollment problems, districts may choose to close consistently poor performing schools. This is especially true in non-traditional districts (such as charter or portfolio districts) that rely on market forces to improve school quality. If a school is not meeting academic standards, then some policymakers believe that students are better off if that school is closed and students are moved to a more effective one.² At the same time, the competitive pressure and threat of school closings can potentially motivate schools to keep their performance at or above the required level. As many researchers and policymakers advocate competition as a way to improve school quality (Hoxby, 2003), closings are likely to become more prominent. Thus, it is important to understand the full effects of these closings, as they are a key part of the general equilibrium effects of school competition.

There are many theoretical effects that closing a school could have on students. The closure itself may act as a disruption to student learning. Following a closure, students are often separated from many of their peers and teachers and will have to adjust to the rules and requirements of a new school. They may have to travel further to attend school, which may separate them from neighborhood ties and make it more difficult to get to and from school each day. At the same time, new teachers and classmates have to adjust to the sudden flow of new students in the classroom, which may lead to an overall lower level of learning.

On the other hand, school quality should theoretically improve following closures.³ If a student's previous school was closed due to poor performance then they are likely to move to a better performing one. If a school is closed for under-utilization, then the redistribution of funds and the movement to a more efficient school should likewise improve outcomes. To the extent that school quality and expenditures affect student performance, these changes will positively affect students.⁴

Previous research has shown that all of these theories are likely valid. Most studies of elementary school closures find that test scores receive an immediate post-closure drop followed by an eventual rise, often leading to null effects or even test score gains a few years later (Brummet, 2014; Carlson & Lavertu, 2016; de la Torre & Gwynne, 2009; Engberg, Gill, Zamarro & Zimmer, 2012; Özek, Hansen & Gonzalez, 2012).⁵ This finding is generally consistent even though the studies take place in a variety of settings across the United States including Chicago, Michigan, Ohio, and Washington, DC. Additionally, several of these studies find that students have better outcomes the greater the increase in school quality post-closure (Brummet, 2014; Carlson & Lavertu, 2016; de la Torre & Gwynne, 2009; Engberg et al., 2012). Finally, two of these studies examine the spillover effects on receiving schools. Engberg et al. (2012) find no adverse spillover effects, while Brummett (2014) found that students in receiving schools are negatively affected. Taken together, these results suggest that closures do not cause sustained academic harm to students and in some situations may improve academic outcomes in the long run. However, students who face closures late in their academic careers have less time to reap any long-term benefits and any short-term negative shocks are arguably more important. To that end, high school closures might be more likely to cause lasting harm than closures in elementary or middle school.

This paper is the one of the few quantitative papers to focus on the effect of closing high schools. Kirshner, Gaertner and Pozzoboni (2010) have a mixed methods study of a single high school closure in the western United States. They find both quantative and qualitative evidence that closure students face more challenges as a result of the closure and are ultimately less likely to graduate. Kemple (2015) examines high school phase-outs in New York City. With phase-outs schools stay open long enough for the current cohorts to finish, but no new 9th grade cohorts are admitted. Results show no effects on the phase-out students but there is evidence of beneficial effects for the future cohorts that would have attended the phase-out school had it not closed. Finally, Bross, Harris and Liu (2016) have a report that studies both charter takeovers and school closures in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. They find positive graduation effects in New Orleans, but negative effects in Baton Rouge, which they argue is likely a result of the differential change in quality of the schools attended post closure.⁶

This paper adds to the small high school closure literature by examining the effect of a large number of high school closures in Milwaukee. I estimate the effect of 33 high school closures on achievement (GPA, attendance, and discipline) and educational attainment (high school graduation and college attendance). I utilize student-level microdata that cover a nine-year period including five different freshmen cohorts in the Milwaukee Public School (MPS) district. Using a difference-in-differences estimations strategy I am able to compare achievement of students before and after school closures to students who did not experience closures over the same time horizon.

This paper is also one of the only closure papers able to examine non-test score outcomes including attendance, GPA, and discipline, and perhaps most notably the impact of closings on post-high school outcomes. Using data that matches high school students to their college enrollment, I compare the educational attainment of students who experienced school closures to those who did not, controlling for rich demographic and pre-closure achievement variables.

I find that attendance is negatively affected by high school closures. The effects tend to stay negative even three years after closure, which, for many students, is past the point they would be enrolled in high school. Alternatively, GPA appears to spike positively in the last year before closure. Students who experience a closure while in high school are less likely to graduate and less likely to attend college. While these effects vary slightly based upon the quality of the school attended after closure, there is not clear evidence that going to a higher quality school alleviates any negative effects.

These results have important implications for policymakers. An often-used justification for the closure of schools is the long-term benefits they can create for current and future students. However, at the high school level these benefits do not appear to manifest for current students who face long-term negative effects. This may be judged a worthwhile sacrifice in order to improve the district overall, but the costs appear non-trivial.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: I first describe closures in the Milwaukee Public School district. Then in Section 3 I describe the data while Section 4 describes the estimation strategy. Section 5 examines the main results of the closures and Section 6 explores their heterogeneous impacts. Section 7 concludes.