Racialized Closures and the Shuttering of Black Schools: Evidence from National Data

Abstract

In this article Danielle Marie Greene-Bell and Francis A. Pearman II examine racial disparities in school closures across the United States, with a particular interest in majority Black schools. Using survival analysis and longitudinal data, they find that majority Black schools are far more likely to close than non-majority Black schools and that these elevated closure rates are not fully accounted for by observable differences like achievement levels, enrollment patterns, and the socioeconomic status of their surrounding communities. Using the theoretical frame of BlackQuantCrit, they argue that this pattern of findings is consistent with the theory that school closures demonstrate historical and contemporary forms of anti-Blackness that affect US schools and the geography of opportunity more broadly.