A preliminary analysis of 34 sets of Detroit schools that were involved in mergers after the 2008-09 school year found improved reading and math test scores at many of them.
Twenty-three of the merged schools showed reading improvements on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program; math scores remained stable or improved in 18 schools.
The initial Detroit findings are in contrast to a study of school closures in Chicago released last fall by the Consortium on Chicago School Research, which found students there often experienced unimproved academic performance when moved from a closed school, largely because they were placed in schools that were just as low-performing as the ones the district had closed.
