By Alyn Turner
When districts justify school closures, the argument often includes a promise: displaced students will attend better schools. The theory is straightforward—move students from underperforming, underenrolled buildings into higher-quality environments with more resources and stronger academic programs. If closures systematically improve the schools students attend, the disruption could be worth it.
But here’s what decades of research across multiple cities reveals: school closure is not inherently academically beneficial or harmful. Its impacts are policy-produced through two critical variables: WHERE students actually land and HOW disruptive the transition is.
The Long Shadow: What Happens Years Later
The most sobering findings come from longitudinal studies tracking students well beyond their school years. Researchers analyzing decades of data from Milwaukee and Texas documented impacts that extend far past test scores into students’ adult lives.
Students who experienced school closures showed patterns that should concern any district leader:
- Lower high school graduation rates
- Lower college enrollment rates
- Reduced likelihood of attending higher-quality postsecondary institutions
- Lower employment rates in their mid-to-late twenties
- Reduced earnings compared to peers who didn’t experience closures
Even when test scores rebounded after a few years—a common finding that districts often cite as evidence closures “worked”—the disruption left marks on students’ life trajectories that showed up a decade later in employment and earnings data.
The Quality Pathway: When Closures Can Help
That said, the research does identify conditions under which closures can benefit students academically. Multiple rigorous studies across different cities converge on the same mechanism: student outcomes improve when closures systematically move them into meaningfully higher-performing, better-resourced schools.
This is sometimes called the “quality pathway”—the idea that closure-induced displacement can act as an access upgrade, placing students in educational environments they wouldn’t have otherwise had.
Studies from Chicago, New York City, and New Orleans have documented test score gains when this pathway operates this way: low-performing schools close, and students transfer to demonstrably stronger schools with higher achievement levels, more experienced teachers, richer course offerings, and better facilities.
But here’s the critical qualifier that districts often miss: the quality pathway requires actual, substantial quality differences between closing and receiving schools. Moving students from one struggling school to another struggling school—just in a different building—produces no benefit. Moving students to a school that’s marginally better produces modest effects at best.
The Geography of Constrained Choice
So why doesn’t the quality pathway operate more consistently? Why don’t displaced students reliably end up in substantially better schools?
The answer lies in what researchers call “constrained choice”—the gap between theoretical options and viable options in families’ lived reality.
After Chicago’s closures, researchers interviewed 95 affected families about their enrollment decisions. What emerged was a consistent story: families’ actual choices were heavily shaped by constraints—safety concerns, transportation feasibility, special education service match, and confusion about whether they “really” had options.
What does this mean in practice:
- Safety and territorial boundaries: In many urban contexts, neighborhood territories matter—sometimes intensely. A school that looks accessible on a district map might require crossing gang boundaries or traveling through areas families perceive as unsafe. These aren’t irrational fears; they’re informed by lived experience.
- Transportation logistics: Even when districts offer transportation, routes may require transfers, long commutes, or early morning/late afternoon travel that conflicts with parents’ work schedules. For families without cars and limited transit options, geographic distance translates into genuine inaccessibility.
- Special education and service match: Students with IEPs need schools that can provide their specific services. If a higher-performing school doesn’t offer the program a student needs—or has a waitlist—it’s not really an option, regardless of its test scores.
- Information asymmetry: Families often lack clear, accessible information about receiving school options during the tight windows when enrollment decisions must be made. District-provided materials may be overwhelming, jargon-heavy, or not translated into home languages.
The result: many displaced students don’t land in substantially higher-quality schools because the higher-quality schools aren’t actually accessible given real-world constraints. Research consistently shows that geographic proximity, not school quality metrics, often determines where students enroll after closure.
What “Quality” Means to Different Stakeholders
A study of a school closure in Newark revealed something that should fundamentally reshape how districts think about transitions. Researchers interviewed district leaders, teachers, parents, and students about what made a school “good.” The definitions barely overlapped:
- District leaders emphasized test scores, building utilization rates, and operating costs—the metrics driving closure decisions.
- Teachers emphasized professional respect, informal mentoring systems, and tailored supports for struggling students—the conditions enabling them to do their jobs effectively.
- Parents emphasized continuity, safety, and feasible transportation routes—the practical factors determining whether their children could attend and thrive.
- Students emphasized relationships, familiarity, and stability—the social-emotional foundations of their school experience.
When a thirteen-year-old named Jeralyn was interviewed about her school closing, she said:
“I hate transferring schools ’cause I thought if I have to transfer I have to make new friends… I been there for like… 5 years. I’m gonna be separated from a lot of my friends… you have to like leave your friends. And some of the teachers that you knew for a couple of years, you won’t see any more probably.”
Notice what’s absent from Jeralyn’s concerns: test scores, building utilization, operating efficiency. She’s worried about losing the people who make school feel safe and meaningful.
This isn’t immaturity or missing the point. Research on adolescent development and school attachment shows that connectedness to peers and trusted adults predicts academic engagement, motivation, and performance. Social isolation, conversely, is associated with disengagement and lower achievement.
When districts use one set of criteria (test scores, enrollment, facilities) to justify closures, they can inadvertently destroy the very relationships and supports that students and families view as central to educational quality.
The Relationship Disruption Pathway
Deep qualitative research spanning multiple cities documents how closures disrupt relationships—and how much that matters.
Following Chicago’s 2013 mass closures, researchers found that students experienced:
- Lost friendship networks (often built over many years)
- Major shifts in peer relationships (having to rebuild social capital from scratch)
- Changes in teacher relationships (losing trusted adults who knew their histories)
- Altered feelings of safety and security (navigating unfamiliar social terrain)
In a California case study, students reported weaker relationships with teachers in receiving schools compared to the teachers they’d lost. Researchers described this as removal of a “protective factor”—trusted adults who could intervene when students struggled, who knew students’ families and circumstances, who could advocate within the system.
This protective factor loss showed up in outcomes. Students who lost these relationships were more likely to be chronically absent, more likely to disengage academically, and less likely to graduate.
The Baltimore closures study found something similar. When researchers asked families to define school quality, their definition was not solely academic but relational. Strikingly, this held true even when closing schools were performing poorly academically. Families didn’t discount academic performance—they just didn’t think it was the only thing that mattered. A struggling school with caring teachers who knew their children felt more valuable than a higher-performing school where their children would be anonymous.
The Concentration Problem
Even when districts successfully place students in higher-quality receiving schools, there’s another variable that shapes outcomes: how many displaced students any single receiving school absorbs.
Research from Philadelphia’s closures (which shuttered more than 10% of district schools between 2011-2013) revealed a clear pattern: students who transferred to schools with lower concentrations of displaced students showed more academic growth and fewer absences than peers who moved to schools with higher concentrations.
The mechanism appears to be resource dilution and social integration challenges. When receiving schools absorb large numbers of new students simultaneously—particularly students who have just experienced significant disruption—it strains:
- Counseling and mental health services
- Teacher capacity to build relationships with new students
- Physical space and facilities
- School climate and peer integration processes
Philadelphia researchers found the negative effects were most pronounced when displaced students comprised more than 10% of a receiving school’s enrollment. Above that threshold, both displaced students and original students at receiving schools showed declining outcomes.
This has clear implications for how districts plan reassignments. Spreading displaced students across more receiving schools—rather than concentrating them in a few—can prevent these negative spillovers.
So What Can Districts Do?
The evidence points toward specific actions that increase the likelihood displaced students land in genuinely better schools without losing protective relationships:
- Track What Students Receive, Not Just Where They Go
Districts should collect and publicly report data on not only the destinations of displaced students but also the quality of academic and relational environments in receiving schools. This might include:
- Access to advanced coursework, intervention programs, and enrichment activities
- Counselor-to-student ratios and mental health support availability
- Presence of culturally affirming pedagogy and restorative practices
- Staff diversity and turnover rates
- Student-teacher relationship indicators (e.g., teacher retention, years at school)
The goal is transparency about whether transitions meaningfully improve opportunity or just move students into different buildings with similar challenges.
- Minimize Concentration of Displaced Students
Based on Philadelphia’s evidence that negative effects emerge above ~10% displaced student concentration, districts should:
- Cap the proportion of displaced students assigned to any single receiving school
- Equitably distribute students based on receiving school capacity, quality, and climate—not just proximity
- Monitor receiving school impacts in real-time and adjust if concentration effects emerge
This may require opening more receiving school options or redistributing assignments after initial placement decisions.
- Make Real Choice Feasible by Addressing Real Constraints
Rather than presenting options as if all are equally accessible, districts should:
Bundle transportation commitments with school options (guaranteed seats on buses, route safety plans, backup options if transportation fails)
Publish clear, accessible information about each receiving school option:
- Actual travel time from displacement zone (not just distance)
- Available special education programs and services
- After-school programs and supports
- Contact person for enrollment questions
Create navigation supports for families—not just informational materials but actual people who can help families understand options, complete applications, and problem-solve barriers.
Address safety concerns explicitly through safe passage programs, adjusted start times to avoid high-crime periods, or partnerships with community organizations.
- Prioritize Relational Transition as Much as Logistical Transition
The evidence on relationship disruption suggests districts should invest as heavily in social-emotional transition supports as in bus routes and seat assignments:
- Maintain connections to trusted adults: Can some teachers from closing schools move to receiving schools with their students? Can districts create mentoring programs pairing displaced students with staff from their previous schools?
- Build peer relationships proactively: Receiving schools should create structured opportunities for displaced and continuing students to connect—welcome events, peer buddy systems, shared activities—rather than assuming integration will happen organically.
- Provide transition counseling: Every displaced student should have access to counseling support specifically focused on navigating the social and emotional dimensions of school change.
- Quick access to help: Establish clear protocols so displaced students can quickly access support when struggling, rather than waiting for problems to compound.
- Define Quality the Way Families and Students Do
When evaluating whether receiving schools represent “upgrades,” districts should use frameworks that capture what matters to students and families, not just what matters to administrators:
- Ask students and families what makes a school good for them. Their definitions may differ from district metrics—and those differences reveal implementation gaps.
- Recognize that safety, relationships, and belonging are educational quality indicators, not ancillary concerns. A high-performing school where a student feels unsafe or isolated isn’t a quality option for that student.
- Be transparent about tradeoffs. If the highest-quality receiving schools aren’t accessible given transportation/safety/service constraints, acknowledge this rather than claiming closures will improve all students’ educational experiences.
- Use Transparent Reporting to Build Accountability
Publish annual reports tracking displaced student outcomes compared to:
- Their own pre-closure trajectories
- Peers who stayed in schools that didn’t close
- Students who were already enrolled in receiving schools
This data should include not just test scores but attendance, discipline, course-taking, relationships with adults, sense of belonging, and longer-term outcomes like graduation and college enrollment.
When data shows closures aren’t producing promised benefits, districts should be prepared to adjust strategy rather than defending decisions already made.
The Bigger Picture
When school closures systematically move students into substantially better educational environments, benefits can emerge—at least for some outcomes, for some students, in some contexts.
But the “quality pathway” is fragile. It depends on geography, transportation, safety, information access, service capacity, relationship continuity, and how many displaced students any single school absorbs. It depends on defining “quality” in ways that align with what students and families need, not just what district accountability systems measure.
Most critically, it depends on acknowledging that disruption is never neutral. Even beneficial transitions create loss—of relationships, of familiarity, of social networks that took years to build. The question isn’t whether students will lose something. The question is whether what they gain is substantial enough to justify that loss.
For too many students in too many closure contexts, the research suggests the answer is no. Closures disrupt relationships without improving school quality. They impose new barriers without removing old ones. They promise upgraded opportunities while concentrating students in ways that strain the very schools meant to serve them better.
But this doesn’t have to be the outcome. Districts that acknowledge the quality pathway as a design challenge—not an automatic benefit—can build implementation frameworks that increase the likelihood displaced students actually land somewhere meaningfully better. Districts that track relational outcomes alongside academic ones can identify when transitions are failing students despite changes in building assignments.
This is the third article in a four-part series examining what happens after school closure decisions. Coming next: how receiving schools can prepare for and support displaced students without creating spillover harm.
Research Sources
This article synthesizes findings from the following peer-reviewed studies and research reports:
Long-term outcomes:
- Larsen, M. F. (2020). Does closing schools close doors? The effect of high school closings on achievement and attainment. Economics of Education Review, 76, 101980.
- Kim, J. (2024). The long shadow of school closures: Impacts on students’ educational and labor market outcomes. EdWorkingPaper: 24-963.
Quality pathway and where students land:
- Engberg, J., Gill, B., Zamarro, G., & Zimmer, R. (2012). Closing schools in a shrinking district: Do student outcomes depend on which schools are closed? Journal of Urban Economics, 71(2), 189-203.
- Steinberg, M. P., & MacDonald, J. M. (2019). The effects of closing urban schools on students’ academic and behavioral outcomes: Evidence from Philadelphia. Economics of Education Review, 69, 25-60.
- Bifulco, R., & Schwegman, D. J. (2020). Who benefits from accountability-driven school closure? Evidence from New York City. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 39(1), 96-130.
- Bross, W., Harris, D. N., & Liu, L. (2016). Extreme measures: When and how school closures and charter takeovers benefit students. Education Research Alliance for New Orleans.
Constrained choice and family decision-making:
- de la Torre, M., Gordon, M. F., Moore, P., & Cowhy, J. (2015). School closings in Chicago: Understanding families’ choices and constraints for new school enrollment. UChicago Consortium on School Research.
- Gwynne, J. A., & de la Torre, M. (2009). When schools close: Effects on displaced students in Chicago Public Schools. Consortium on Chicago School Research, University of Chicago.
- Han, C., Raymond, M. E., Woodworth, J. L., Negassi, Y., Richardson, W. P., & Snow, W. (2017). Lights off: Practice and impact of closing low-performing schools (Vols. I-II). Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), Stanford University.
Relationship disruption and student voice:
- Gordon, M. F., de la Torre, M., Cowhy, J. R., Moore, P. T., Sartain, L., & Knight, D. (2018). School closings in Chicago: Staff and student experiences and academic outcomes. University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.
- Kirshner, B., Gaertner, M., & Pozzoboni, K. (2010). Tracing transitions: The effect of high school closure on displaced students. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 32(3), 407-429.
- Deeds, V., & Pattillo, M. (2015). Organizational “failure” and institutional pluralism: A case study of an urban school closure. Urban Education, 50(4), 474-504.
- Shiller, J. (2018). The disposability of Baltimore’s Black communities: A participatory action research project on the impact of school closings. The Urban Review, 50, 23-44.
School belonging and relationships:
- Korpershoek, E. T., Canrinus, M., Fokkens-Bruinsma, & de Boer, H. (2020). The relationships between school belonging and students’ motivational, social-emotional, behavioural, and academic outcomes in secondary education: A meta-analytic review. Research Papers in Education, 35(6), 641-680.
Concentration effects:
- Steinberg, M. P., & MacDonald, J. M. (2019). The effects of closing urban schools on students’ academic and behavioral outcomes: Evidence from Philadelphia. Economics of Education Review, 69, 25-60.