What Happens to Democracy When Schools Close

In 2013, Chicago and Philadelphia together closed a record number of public schools, displacing more than 20,000 students, 90% of whom were low-income African-American and Latino. Their parents aggressively fought these school closures, saying they crumbled neighborhood anchor institutions while leaving their children feeling undervalued. But districts were undeterred, citing financial strains, low enrollment, and poor achievement.

What happens to families in the aftermath of these closings? For her forthcoming book, “Closed for Democracy,” Northwestern University urban politics professor Sally Afia Nuamah found that school closures tend to imbibe mostly black and Latino families with a sense of “mobilization fatigue”: They expend considerable political energy fighting to keep their schools open only to watch their elected officials cater to families who actually support closing schools.