In the last decade, many cities around the U.S. have needed to close schools due to declining enrollments and low achievement. School closings raise concerns about the possible negative impacts on student achievement, neighborhoods, families, and teaching staff. This RAND study examines an anonymous urban district that, faced with declining enrollment, chose to make student achievement a major criterion in determining which schools would be closed. The district targeted low-performing schools in its closure plan, seeking to move students to higher-performing schools. RAND estimates the impact of school closures on student test scores and attendance rates by comparing the growth of these measures among students differentially affected by the closures. RAND uses residential assignment to school as an instrument to address non-random sorting of students into new schools. RAND also statistically controls for the contemporaneous effects of other reforms within the district. Results show that students displaced by school closures can experience adverse effects on test scores and attendance, but these effects can be minimized when students move to schools that are higher performing (in value-added terms). Moreover, the negative effect on attendance disappears after the first year in the new school. Meanwhile, RAND finds no adverse effects on students in the schools that are receiving the transferring students.
