“Sometimes you have to laugh to keep yourself from crying.” The old African-American adage captures the distressing humor of the season finale of “Abbott Elementary,” which uses comedy to spotlight one of the pressing problems impacting many children across the country: public school closings. When Abbott’s teachers learn their school is targeted for closure, panic and heartbreak ensue until the superintendent decides not to close because of the recently installed furnace.
In real life, districts across the country are deciding whether to close schools using a facility-based metric to determine which schools should close. “Abbott Elementary” illuminates the contradiction in school shuttering and the need for transformative change in public education.
A recent article cites falling birth rates as the primary cause of the need to close schools, while also suggesting that families moving to the suburbs, competition from private and charter schools, empty classrooms, budget deficits, and inadequate academic programming are contributing to this alarming trend.
For example, in the Midwest, St. Louis Public Schools is closing 37 schools, and Milwaukee Public Schools is recommending closing 25 schools. In the Northeast, Philadelphia is closing 17 schools, and Pittsburgh has proposed closing nine schools. In the south, Houston is proposing to close 12 schools; Miami-Dade County Public Schools is proposing to close up to nine schools; and Atlanta Public Schools is proposing to close or repurpose 16 schools. On the West Coast, the San Jose Unified Board of Education is closing five schools, and Portland Public Schools is proposing closing five to 12 schools. School closures are framed as a pragmatic decision. However, in reality, it reflects the district leaders’ inability to develop creative solutions.
Closing schools is false generosity that will not assist Black children in developing and advancing their dreams. Educational philosopher Paulo Freire defined false generosity as superficially solving a problem without addressing the fundamental issues that produce educational inequality. School closings in Pittsburgh and around the country illustrate Freire’s point.
During the April 14 Pittsburgh Public School Education Committee meeting, the district’s chief financial officer informed the school board that school closings and consolidations would not solve the budget deficit. He then asserted the Future Ready Facilities Plan “was never presented as a plan that solved everything … .” If closing the nine schools won’t eliminate the budget deficit, why are we doing it? Such an action will impose avoidable trauma on the Pittsburgh Public School students.
School board officials, who are to vote on the closure plan Wednesday, also assert that closing schools is a chance to offer more high-quality programming. The opportunity gaps among Black students are wide and deeply upsetting. For example, only 25% of African-American students in grades 3-5 read proficiently. African-American students in middle and high school do not fare better; their proficiency rates are 25% and 35%, respectively. If Pittsburgh Public Schools struggles to properly educate Black students, then why would families believe that closing schools improves academic outcomes?
And to add to it, PPS is proposing a neighborhood-based school structure. When I was a graduate student, the then-superintendent, Mark Roosevelt, spoke to my class. He asserted that Pittsburgh’s public school system was extremely segregated, and implemented the magnet school system in an attempt to integrate the public school system. Was it perfect? No, but proposing a neighborhood-based educational structure has the potential to have an adverse impact on public education. As a Black father, I fear it might create a separate and very unequal public education system, while also widening opportunity gaps that currently exist for Black students. This amounts to an educational apartheid system.
To be sure, some people assert that closing schools is a hard decision. The directors of the school board are following the same prescription that districts around the country are. Thus, this is not making the hard decision; they are making the easy one because it does not require a true transformation of the public educational system.
As an educator and social entrepreneur, I see the school closing issue as an opportunity to reimagine public education. First, the district should use a human-design approach to solve the pressing educational problems facing the district. Second, create the space for students to be meaningful co-creators of the policy at the district and school level. Third, allow nonprofit organizations and social enterprises to co-locate in underpopulated buildings; these organizations can offer in-school and after-school programming to enrich the learning experiences of students and their families.
“Abbott Elementary” played with the truth about school closures by suggesting they are poorly thought-out solutions. However, in the real world, parents, students and communities across America are facing a reality we cannot laugh at. School board directors in Pittsburgh ought to vote “no” to close schools because it is not the panacea to the problems facing the district, nor will it solve the educational gaps Black children face. Instead, district officials, students, parents and community members ought to develop a public education system centered on ensuring that each child is ready to pursue their dreams.
Nosakhere Griffin-EL is an award-winning educator and the co-founder and CEO of The Young Dreamers’ Bookstore in Pittsburgh. He is also a Public Voices Fellow at The OpEd Project in partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute.