Managing shrinkage by “right-sizing” schools: The case of school closures in Philadelphia

ABSTRACT

This article situates school facilities management decisions—specifically school closures and building disposition—in the shrinking cities discourse as a first step toward better understanding and managing shrinkage as a multi-sectoral and multi-scalar phenomenon. I ask: how do school closure and disposition decisions respond to and perpetuate shrinkage? First, I present gaps and connections across prior empirical work on shrinkage and that of school closures. Second, I provide a case study analysis of Philadelphia’s school closures and disposition processes. I argue that school closure decisions are deeply tied to the discourse and dynamics of shrinkage in four ways: (1) as part of the feedback loop of catalysts and consequences that entrench shrinking cities, (2) by contributing to the material reality of aging physical infrastructure, (3) in the use of austerity logics and “right-sizing” approaches to managing a physical plant, and (4) by amplifying shrinkage’s disproportionate impacts on already marginalized communities of color. Examining formal closure processes and the lived experience of school closure in the context of shrinkage challenges planners to take seriously the multi-sector and multi-scalar nature of shrinkage, and raises questions about equitable access to public resources in shrinking cities.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the editors, anonymous reviewers, and Aksel Olsen for thorough and thoughtful feedback, and Andy Seguin and Alisha Butler for research assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. An early study found that projected cost savings were overstated (Andrews, 1974). More recently, a study found that average annual savings after closures were under $1 million per building (Dowdall, 2011). Personnel are generally accepted as the largest proportion of district budgets, but layoffs do not often accompany closures because teachers are reassigned to other still-open schools. Some districts do not account for increased transportation costs for students traveling to reassigned, often further afield, schools (Research for Action, 2013). Districts also hope for a one-time cash infusion by selling vacant school buildings, but sale prices for school buildings have been well below district projections (Dowdall, 2013).

2. Public meetings and/or hearings included those convened by: the Philadelphia Police Department, the School Reform Commission, the Zoning Board of Adjustments, the City Planning Commission, Philadelphia City Council, and the Philadelphia Housing Authority.

3. To find relevant community organizations, I used the city’s list of Registered Community Organizations (RCOs). RCOs are community-based nonprofits, neighborhood associations, or political groups that have applied for and received official designation by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. RCOs receive early notification about any proposed zoning changes or new development proposals in their jurisdiction, including school buildings (“City of Philadelphia: Registered Community Organizations (RCO),” n.d.).

4. Public agencies and nonprofit organizations included: School District of Philadelphia school facilities department; the School Reform Commission; Philadelphia City Council; Mayor’s Offices of Housing and Community Development, Education, and Economic Opportunity; the City Planning Commission; the Zoning Board of Adjustment; the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation; the Philadelphia Housing Authority; The Reinvestment Fund; the Philadelphia Research Initiative at the Pew Charitable Trusts; the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia; the William Penn Foundation; the Philadelphia School Partnership; and Public Citizens for Children and Youth.

5. The design charrette was called Reactivating Vacant Schools and hosted by the Community Design Collaborative, a nonprofit community design center in Philadelphia. The Community Design Collaborative provides pro bono design and planning services to local community groups. This design charrette was organized around the reactivation of two school sites, the old Frances Willard School and the W. Hall Stanton School. I participated on the team that worked on the Stanton school that is located in the Lower North planning district. The team included volunteer architects, community members, nonprofit providers, and community development corporation leaders. A panel of city and school district leaders, developers, and housing finance experts concluded the day with reflections on the school closures, school reuse, and the teams’ proposals. A write-up about the day can be found on the collaborative’s blog: http://www.cdesignc.org/blog/2014/11/24/ideas-for-reactivating-vacant-schools.

6. Charter schools are publicly funded but operated by either non- or for-profit entities. They must be open to all students and meet academic benchmarks, but are otherwise exempt from most district policies. While today charter schools are associated with market-based approaches, historically some emphasized local control, culturally-relevant curriculum, and a strong place-based connection (Scott, 2012; Stulberg, 2016).

7. Notably, Philadelphia never had a fully elected school board. Mayor Richardson Dilworth spearheaded a referendum that passed in 1965 that made the elected school board smaller and more accountable to the mayor. The City Charter Article XII: Public Education 92 (amended in 1999 through Philadelphia City Council Resolution 990066, approved June 28, 1999) stipulates that the mayor appoints the nine Board of Education members (Philadelphia Home Rule Charter, 1965). The creation of the SRC did curtail what little local authority residents had, however. In 2018, the SRC members voted to abolish the commission and authority reverted back to a mayoral-appointed board in July 2018.

8. Students are tested in grades 3 through 8 and 11. Results are actual results as reported by the School District of Philadelphia to the Pennsylvania Department of Education for the 2014–2015 school year.

9. For example, in the 1960s, with an influx of primarily Black families in North and West Philadelphia, the school district suddenly faced overcrowding in its school buildings, many of which were built in the late 19th century. The district launched a school building program to rehabilitate and build new school facilities, primarily in North and West Philadelphia. This boom of school enrollment was relatively short-lived. New and larger facilities accommodated the growing populations of the 1960s, but offered the opposite challenge when enrollment began to decline and the state provided less funding to the local school district, necessitating a wave of closures in the 1970s and 1980s. (Clapper, 2006).

10. Public meetings and/or hearings included those convened by: the Philadelphia Police Department, the School Reform Commission, the Zoning Board of Adjustments, the City Planning Commission, City Council, and the Philadelphia Housing Authority.

11. The number of schools closed in Philadelphia I cite in this study may vary from news coverage or other research. In its proposals, SDP considered a closure of a program or a building. My numbers reflect the number of school buildings that were closed. Thus, a school program that was shut down, but reconstituted in the same building would not appear in my list. For example, George Washington Elementary School was closed according to the district. Abigail Vare Elementary School was not closed by district definition. However, the Vare program with all its students, teachers, and staff was moved to the Washington building, and the Vare building was shuttered. For my purposes, Vare was closed because the school building was shuttered. Washington does not appear on my list because the building never sat vacant and always had a public school in operation. For more on my method to compile the list of closed schools see (Bierbaum, 2018b).

12. http://phlschoolsales.com/.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation and the University of California Hellman Fellows Fund.

Notes on contributors

Ariel H. Bierbaum

Ariel H. Bierbaum joined the faculty of the Urban Studies and Planning Program at the University of Maryland in 2017. She received her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research lies at the nexus of urban change and politics, planning practice, and public education.