As school districts across the country grapple with declining enrollment, expiring pandemic relief funding and budget shortfalls, a growing body of research suggests that permanent school closures disproportionately displace Black students and those from low-income communities. The findings come as districts in cities including Chicago, Philadelphia and Oakland have faced pressure to consolidate schools to reduce costs.
The research, conducted by Megan Kuhfeld and Ayesha K. Hashim of the Northwest Evaluation Association, shows that roughly 1 percent of public schools closed permanently each year over the past decade, affecting between 100,000 and 250,000 students annually. The national closure rate peaked at 1.3 percent in 2017-2018, fell to 0.7 percent during the pandemic years, then rose back to 0.9 percent in both 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 as federal relief funding expired.
What the Right Is Saying
Fiscal conservatives and some district administrators argue that consolidation decisions are driven primarily by demographic shifts and fiscal necessity rather than race. School districts facing enrollment declines of 20 percent or more say closing underenrolled buildings is essential to maintaining educational quality in remaining schools.
American Enterprise Institute education policy fellow Thomas Lu said in an interview that 'framing every budget decision through a racial equity lens ignores the mathematical reality of declining birth rates and population shifts.' He argued that districts must prioritize per-pupil spending adequacy over building preservation.
Some Republican state legislators have pushed back on proposed closure moratoriums. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation last year streamlining district consolidation processes, arguing that bureaucratic barriers prevent districts from operating efficiently. The bill's sponsor, Senator Blaise Bezio, said at the time that 'parents care about educational outcomes, not whether a building stays open.'
What the Left Is Saying
Progressive educators and civil rights advocates argue that school closures compound existing inequities facing Black students who already experienced the largest academic setbacks during the pandemic. Kuhfeld and Hashim write that schools serving a majority of Black students represented about one-quarter of all closures in 2024-2025, despite comprising less than 10 percent of public schools nationwide.
The researchers found that even when schools lost students at identical rates, those serving Black students remained significantly more likely to close. In high-poverty schools experiencing a 50 percent enrollment drop, the closure rate for schools serving exclusively Black students was twice that of schools serving no Black students.
Children's Defense Fund President Maya Rockwell said in a statement that school closures 'extract an additional educational debt from communities already owed the greatest reparative investment.' The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has called for moratoriums on closures in majority-Black neighborhoods pending equity impact studies.
What the Numbers Show
According to NWEA research data cited in the analysis: approximately 671 to 1,174 public schools closed permanently each year between 2015 and 2025; Black students comprise roughly 15 percent of the public school population but represent an estimated 25 percent of students displaced by closures; high-poverty schools are similarly overrepresented among closures.
Studies from Chicago and Philadelphia documented academic setbacks for displaced students in reading and math, with gains occurring only when students transferred to significantly higher-performing receiving schools. The Chicago study found no achievement benefits for most displaced students unless they secured placements in schools rated substantially above their closed institution.
Long-term data from Texas shows that students from closed schools experienced lower high school completion rates, reduced college attainment and decreased employment and earnings into adulthood compared with peers at non-closed schools. These effects were more pronounced for students from low-performing schools and economically disadvantaged communities.
The Bottom Line
The debate over school closures reflects broader tensions between fiscal constraints facing districts and equity concerns about which communities bear the burden of consolidation decisions. As pandemic-era federal funding expires, closure rates have returned to pre-pandemic levels, reigniting disputes over distributional impacts.
Districts in Oakland, Denver and Detroit are currently considering or implementing multi-year closure plans affecting hundreds of schools combined. Researchers recommend that when closures cannot be avoided, districts guarantee displaced students placements at schools rated equal to or higher than their closed school and provide transportation supports to minimize attendance disruptions. Policymakers have called for addressing root causes including housing patterns, state funding levels and gentrification-driven displacement rather than leaving district leaders to manage structural problems alone.