Behind the positive framework of school choice, students and families are suffering due to the closure of their public schools. Students who are impacted the most are facing adverse effect on achievement gains as well as attendance once they move to a different school. Some parents even expressed “increased class sizes, loss of resources, and loss or relationships with trusted adults that negatively affected their children’s educational experiences.”6 Again, the positive discourse undermines the real, negative impact on students, not just academically but both socially and emotionally by breaking the web of human connections through this process of displacement. Yet, no where in the discourse about the efficacy of school closure and school choice are these negative consequences and human dimension mentioned.
The burden to unmask such negative and dire consequences of school closure falls on those who are directly impacted by such top-down educational interventions— students, parents, and teachers. Grassroots of community, youth, teachers, and parent-led organization can be found in cities across the country, organizing and mobilizing members of the communities to demand a high quality public education for all.
Image from: Urban Youth Collaborative (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.urbanyouthcollaborative.org/
The work that these organizations have done is tremendously important and impactful. Working with their members to empower the voices and values of students and parents, these grassroots groups support and provide a platform for students and parents to fight for real education reforms. Some grassroots group work to intentionally create a space for low-income and working class communities. Other youth-led groups organize campaigns to call for a moratorium on school closings. Most groups work to inform youth and parents about education issues and their rights. All in all, people in these grassroots activism believe in the power of the youth and the parents to shift structural systems and policy to to demand a high quality education!
Image from: Youth United for Change (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.youthunitedforchange.org/
Image from: Philadelphia Student Union (2017). Retrieved from https://phillystudentunion.org/mission/
Image from:Urban Youth Collaborative (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.urbanyouthcollaborative.org/
Image from: Parents United for Public Education (n.d.). Retrieved from https://parentsunitedphila.com/
6. Pauline Lipman. (2015). “School Closings: The Nexus of White Supremacy, State Abandonment, and Accumulation by Dispossession,” in What’s Race Got To Do With It?, ed. Bree Picker and Edwin Mayorga. New York: Peter Lang.