Achievement declines and uncertainty among students and staff were among the byproducts of a dramatic downsizing in the number of public schools operating in Chicago, according to a new report.
The Chicago school board’s May 2013 decision to close 49 elementary schools and one high school program displaced 12,000 students, the largest mass school closing to date.
Given two months to move, many teachers said they felt unprepared at the start of the school year, having lost school supplies and materials, according to the report from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. Some said that the move took time away from instructional planning in their new communities.
Students’ challenges included an initial decline in reading scores that later rebounded. Students from closed schools were also found to be two months behind in math, a trend that continued four years after the school closures, according to the report by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.
