Chapter 9: “A Spoke In A Wheel”: School Closures and the Continued Violation of Public Trust

Since 2001, more than 100 traditional public schools have been closed across the Chicagoland area. Most recently, in 2013, 54 public schools were closed—the most schools closed in a single year in U.S history. Nearly 90% of those affected were either Black or Latino. Despite the large number of school closures and its targeted nature, there exist very few investigations on how those affected by closures think about them. This chapter investigates the relationship between education reform policy and public attitudes. Utilizing qualitative data from community meeting transcripts, ethnographic observations, and interviews, this chapter argues that community members’ encounters with the varied and multiple manifestations of education policy implemented by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) over the past decade are inconsistent with the stated objectives of the school closure policy. The inconsistencies experienced by citizens contribute to general

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Public schools have long acted as anchors of the community and cradles of democracy. Indeed, the relative size of the public school system as compared to any other institution of government is unmatched, nor is its normative value in the everyday lives of citizens (Hochschild & Scovronick, 2003). Yet, in part as a result of government efforts to “turn around”¹ public schools in order resolve issues of economic crises, low performance, and under-enrollment, public schools have been closed at increasing rate in recent years (see U.S Department of Education—Blueprint for Reform, 2010; National Council for Education Statistics, n.d.).

While schools are being closed across the United States, the CPS system made history in 2013 when it closed the most schools in a single year. Nearly 90% of the schools targeted for closure were attended by large majorities of low-income African-American students. Yet, in these same communities’ public school systems have become central to community empowerment, employment, and stability (Henig, Hula, Orr,& Pedescleaux, 2001). The targeted nature of school closure raises important questions about the fairness of how the American government distributes public goods among its citizenry, and the impact that these decisions have on the political beliefs of Americans most directly affected by them.

Literature on policy feedback, provides a useful approach for examining the relationship between policy experience and political behavior, more generally. These works identify the ways in which consistent interactions with the design, framing, and discourse around policies can structure individuals’ experiences with the political process. Citizens’ use their encounters with policy as a lens for understanding their juxtaposition to the State at large. Thus, these experiences thus teach citizens important political lessons about government and democracy (i.e., Pierson, 1993; Soss, 1999; Mettler, 2005; Burch, 2013).

In the case of Chicago, a group of people have been consistently affected by changes in the historical role and function of public schools—institutions through which citizens are most likely to experience government and acquire civic skills (Hochschild & Scovronick, 2003). Thus, one would expect citizens’ experiences with school closings to influence their political attitudes and reveal much about the state of American democracy today. Yet, despite the importance and direct consequence of the policy of public school closure on the lives of residents, these questions are yet to be taken on by policy feedback or even public opinion scholars. This chapter addresses these shortcomings through an analysis of attitudes toward school closures compiled from interview data, community meeting observations and transcripts on Chicago. This chapter analyzes how experiences with education shape public attitudes towards the school closure policy and its broader consequences for public trust.

The analysis reveals that community members’ encounters with the various and multiple manifestations of education policy implemented by CPS contribute to general suspicion, and ultimately distrust, of the real objectives behind the current closing policy. In particular, this study demonstrates how citizens’ experiences with closure are inconsistent with the stated objectives of the policy. These inconsistencies have negative feedback effects on public attitudes as they appear reflective of the continued violation of public trust by CPS. Accordingly, citizens’ express oppositional attitudes towards the closure policy, as well as towards those policy actors involved in crafting and implementing it.

The remainder of the chapter is divided into the following sections: The first section reviews the literature on attitudes toward education with a particular focus on school closure. This section is followed by a review of policy feedback literature and its relationship to education attitudes. The section that follows addresses theories of policy feedback in relation to public trust. The chapter then provides a brief overview of school closures in one case, Chicago, before delving into the data, methods, and strategies for analyzing the case. The next section describes the findings in relationship to the argument. The final section addresses alternative explanations and limitations and concludes with the implications of the findings on democratic society.