The Echo

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/10/28/10chicago.h29.html?tkn=SXWFQX%2FwsDDVW%2Fqu%2ByYwiefTbPsBARgn3RhA

Chicago School Closings Found to Yield Few Gains

By Dakarai I. Aarons


Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.

A majority of Chicago students affected by school closings were sent to schools that were low-performing, just like those they left behind—moves that had no significant impact on performance for most students, a study released today finds.

The study, by the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research, examines the academic effects of the closings on students at 18 elementary schools shut down between 2001 and 2006. To measure the impact, the researchers compared students age 8 and older with their counterparts in schools that had similar characteristics but continued to operate. The schools had a combined enrollment of 5,445 students at the time of their closing.
“Certainly, when schools were closed for academic reasons, the idea was to try to change their educational prospects and what they might obtain. Unfortunately, we didn’t find that,” said Julia Gwynne, a senior research analyst with the consortium and the report’s co-author. “The main reason why that seems not to have occurred was because most students did not attend schools that were substantially better than the ones that were closed.”  ... Read it all, right here