What is the Illusion?

The logic behind school closure follows the assumption that charter schools will replace “failing” schools in urban areas and provide a new path to equitable education, promising improved achievement and performance. This deceitful framework somehow became an accepted justification that warrants the demolishing of public housing, privatizing public resources and converting to charter schools rather than addressing the core problems that produced underperforming or under-enrolled schools.

Image from: http://schottfoundation.org/blog/2013/07/09/debunking-myths-school-closures

Image from: Journey for Justice Alliance (2014) Death by a Thousand Cuts: Racism, School Closure, and Public School Sabotage. Retrieved from https://www.j4jalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/J4JReport-final_05_12_14.pdf

Who Benefits From Closing Schools?

Financial speculator, Wall Street bankers, and hedge fund operators! They make enormous profits by privatizing components of public schools in underserved neighborhoods, specifically off of bonds sold by charter school companies in urban areas which primarily enroll students of Color. 5



5. Pauline Lipman, “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, 2015), 70