Dive Brief:
- Decisions like the one that closed 49 "underperforming" public schools in 2013 are said to be at the center of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's unexpected runoff election.
- The New York Times reports that while the closures were seen by Emanuel as a move toward a better future, families around those neighborhood schools see the decision as a major disservice to the community, and teachers who lost their jobs aren't too happy, either.
- Emanuel's runoff opponent, Jesús G. Garcia, received 34% of last week's vote and ran his campaign on a platform supporting local public schools and opposing high-stakes testing.
Dive Insight:
While Emanuel has argued that the school closings are helping improve communities and educational outcomes, those who live in these neighborhoods feel otherwise. While a school may have low academic scores, it is still a resource and sign of stability on a block. Shutting its doors can hurt this. The public's reaction to Emanuel shows that, as well-intentioned as education reform decisions may be, they ultimately will not work without community buy-in. Education is beginning to play a bigger role in the nation's larger political conversation. With that in mind, policy makers on the local level especially would be wise to acknowledge that people care about their public schools, and turning them into charters doesn't always fly.