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Extreme Measures: When and How School Closures and Charter Takeovers Benefit Students

A policy brief and technical report by Whitney Bross, Douglas N. Harris, and Lihan Liu on School Closures and Charter Takeovers

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Extreme Measures: When and How School Closures and Charter Takeovers Benefit Students

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by Whitney Bross, Douglas N. Harris, Lihan Liu

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Extreme Measures: When and How School Closures and Charter Takeovers Benefit Students

This study exam­ines school clo­sures and char­ter takeovers in New Orleans and Baton Rouge that occurred between 2008 and 2014, focus­ing on the effects these inter­ven­tions had on stu­dent achieve­ment, high school grad­u­a­tion, and col­lege entry. Our key find­ings are as fol­lows: The effects of school clo­sure and char­ter takeover on stu­dent out­comes depend­ed sub­stan­tial­ly on whether stu­dents end­ed up in high­er qual­i­ty schools, as well as, per­haps, how much dis­rup­tion they expe­ri­enced. Inter­ven­ing in ele­men­tary schools was more effec­tive in these cities than inter­ven­ing in high schools. New Orleans ele­men­tary stu­dents’ math stan­dard­ized test scores increased by 13 per­centile points after the inter­ven­tions, but the poli­cies may have reduced the col­lege entry rates of high school stu­dents. The results var­ied great­ly between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. New Orleans high school stu­dents expe­ri­enced pos­i­tive effects, while Baton Rouge high school inter­ven­tions reduced the high school grad­u­a­tion rate by 10 per­cent­age points and reduced the col­lege entry rate as well. These poor results in Baton Rouge are pre­dictable because the city’s stu­dents end­ed up in low­er qual­i­ty schools after the inter­ven­tions. The pos­i­tive effects of clo­sure and takeover in New Orleans explain 25% to 40% of the total effect of the New Orleans post-Kat­ri­na school reforms on stu­dent achieve­ment. Our analy­sis helps explain the wide vari­ety of results not only between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, but also between this and pri­or stud­ies of clo­sure and takeover. As with most pro­grams and poli­cies, the effects depend on pol­i­cy design and imple­men­ta­tion. In this brief’s final sec­tion, we dis­cuss cer­tain steps that, accord­ing to the evi­dence, yield a high prob­a­bil­i­ty of suc­cess for these inter­ven­tions. With­out fol­low­ing these steps, clo­sure and char­ter takeover can do con­sid­er­able harm.

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