As Chicago officials prepared to close 50 schools in 2013, the most at one time in American history, neighbors warned that the ramifications would go beyond worse academic outcomes for students. They worried the vacant buildings left behind would hurt their communities.
Thirteen years later, a new study from the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has found that the closings, in fact, led to a 10% increase in gun violence in the areas surrounding the vacant closed schools compared to neighborhoods with similar demographics where schools didn’t close.
The researchers found no statistically significant increase in shootings in communities where closed schools were repurposed, which city officials promised would happen.
“We found that school closure and subsequent building vacancy were associated with significant increases in firearm violence in affected neighborhoods, and that this association appeared to be partially mitigated by subsequent school buildings re-use,” the authors wrote in the study, published in the journal Social Science & Medicine.
The new research adds to a pile of evidence that the closures, at best, didn’t produce transformative outcomes for students and communities, and at worst, they hurt kids and neighborhoods.
“We were interested in thinking about [closed] schools not just as a vacant lot, because they represent so much more in a community,” said Thomas Statchen, a UChicago medical student and lead author of the study. They’re public spaces and “sites of other community events, activities, playgrounds — all these things that are lost alongside a school,” he said.
A 2023 Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ series, “Chicago’s 50 Closed Schools,” found a slew of broken promises by leaders in the decade after the closings: Many buildings were not repurposed, despite vows by city officials to repurpose them as community centers, housing or other projects, with only actually 20 back in use. Academic outcomes didn’t improve for the students who left the closed schools. And increased funding didn’t last at the schools that absorbed them.
Selling the vacant schools has proven difficult because of a lack of buyer interest and deteriorating building conditions. Some sales and projects have fallen through and the successful ones can take several years. CPS stepped up its efforts late last year and identified buyers for five vacant schools. But in all, 14 empty buildings were still publicly owned in January.
The new research from UChicago and Johns Hopkins adds more pressure on public officials to solve longstanding budget challenges, particularly at schools that have lost significant enrollment over the past two decades, without closing more schools — or to have plans in place for vacant buildings.
Whether to close or consolidate schools is on the minds of some voters and candidates as Chicago gears up to choose members of its first fully elected school board this fall. Nearly 900 CPS parents and residents responded to a WBEZ/Sun-Times questionnaire this spring with concerns and questions about the school system. Low-enrollment and under-utilized schools — and their effect on CPS’ budget — was a top issue.
CPS is grappling with widespread budget cuts for a second year as it faces a projected $732 million deficit for the upcoming school year. Officials have said they want to cut spending in ways that don’t affect classrooms and offerings in schools, but that appears difficult.
The study by Statchen and five co-authors analyzed police crime data from 2010 to 2019 and found that areas surrounding vacant schools, mostly on the South and West sides, saw about a 10% increase in shootings after the 2013 closings compared to areas with similar racial demographics and poverty rates where schools remained open. The communities that had an uptick in gun violence also experienced increases in weapons violations and firearm-related assaults and batteries.
The researchers said the findings suggest that long-term vacancy of closed schools is “potentially a key factor contributing to increased firearm violence.”
“You really get to know people who live by you because you go to school with them,” said study co-author Elizabeth Tung, an associate professor of medicine at UChicago. “It’s like it’s not just evicting a family, you’re evicting an entire neighborhood, or an entire community, from their school.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson fought school closings when he was an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union before his election. As mayor, he has called on Illinois lawmakers to spend more on education statewide to help CPS and other school systems struggling after pandemic relief funding ran out, highlighting funding shortages. If the city’s elected school board examines whether to close schools, findings from the UChicago study and the Sun-Times/WBEZ series suggest leaders should tread lightly. A moratorium on school closings in Chicago expires next year.
“Multiple U.S. cities are once again considering significant school closures,” the researchers wrote. “While the decision to close a school is extremely complex and politically-charged, this study indicates that there may be broad consequences — including potential increases in firearm violence — if schools are vacated without concomitant plans for community investment and development.”
Contributing: Al Keefe
