Writing for the Colorado Newsline, Mike DeGuire looks at the real factors behind school closings in Denver and other cities.
At some point, after a retreat with their newly hired consultant, Ben Kleban, a New Orleans charter school founder, the Denver Public Schools Board of Education decided it must close schools before the 2025-26 school year, and they approved what’s known as the EL-18 policy to guide the superintendent in this process.
At the first two school closure community meetings, DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero stated the board’s reasons for closing schools: declining enrollment and underutilization of buildings. Executive director of enrollment Andrew Huber blamed lower birth rates and housing costs for this decline. As required by the board’s policy, the superintendent is considering every school for possible closure, and he will identify the school names on Nov. 7. Then, just two weeks later, the board will vote to close those schools.
This new school closure process is an attempt to avoid a repeat of previous school closure efforts when many citizens pushed back hard against the proposed closures. In 2022, the district engaged a citizens’ committee to develop the closure criteria, and schools to be closed were announced months in advance. The opposition from the community influenced the board to close only three out of nineteen schools named earlier in 2021.
The newly elected board, backed by pro-charter organizations and dark money groups, is making sure they don’t repeat the longer school closure process. The board is publicly committed to closing schools, regardless of size, if they fit their newly defined guardrails.
One of the guardrails recommended by Kleban, and approved by a 4-3 vote, allows the superintendent to consider school standardized test score results in the school closure recommendations. This guideline was especially controversial as several board members expressed their concerns over the racist nature of these state assessments. Kleban also reminded the board they could not close charter schools, since they are governed by state law.
This declining enrollment scenario is not unique to Denver. It is becoming an increasing reality for districts, especially in urban areas across the country. While lower birth rates and housing costs due to gentrification are relevant factors, a critical factor not being openly discussed is the impact of authorizing and promoting charter schools. In November 2022, Jeannie Kaplan, former two-term DPS school board member, explained how the decisions by “previous school boards to open so many charters would eventually lead to problems for the neighborhood schools.”
Between 2005 and 2016, DPS boards “closed or replaced 48 schools and opened more than 70, the majority of them charters,” according to charter advocacy group Chiefs for Change. While the district was still growing, school boards used the criteria of “failing schools” to close neighborhood schools.
DPS also promoted charter schools by creating enrollment zones to encourage parents to enroll in charters along with district schools. The Network for Public Education published a report describing how Denver’s “portfolio model” created significant inequities in student achievement, increased segregation, and community disruption. Billionaires continue to fund this “portfolio model” by providing grants to local groups to promote charter schools in cities across the country.
During the DPS community meetings, Huber (who recently worked for nine years with the Strive Prep charter school chain) named several districts with “similar” declining enrollment. These are the charter school percentages of the total student populations in those districts: San Antonio, 51%; Indianapolis, 48%; Pittsburgh, 18%; Philadelphia, 37%; Cleveland, 30%; San Francisco, 13%; Jefferson County, Colorado, 11%,; and Denver, 24%.
David Arsen, professor at Michigan State University, documented that “school choice policies powerfully exacerbate the financial pressures of declining-enrollment districts, particularly those with sustained high levels of charter school penetration.” His research found that the “adverse impact on district finances increases progressively as the charter threshold increases from 5% to 25% of resident students.”
Concerned citizens are speaking out against the school closures in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, San Antonio, and other locations. Some analysts see this move to “right-size” schools as an opportunity to renew the expansion of charter schools, since charters have also seen enrollment declines.
Last year, before San Antonio closed 15% of its schools for “academic and financial sustainability,” Professor Terence Green, an education researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, said, “charter schools…. could siphon off more students in the wake of closures… I feel confident from my qualitative data for the people who are in the neighborhoods and communities, that those charter schools are salivating at the opportunity.”
The reasons for closing schools are not just about birth rates, empty buildings and the high cost of housing. The elephant in the room — charter schools — exists, and the public deserves more honest, full discussions about why the school board is so committed to closing neighborhood schools in Denver.
