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Effects of Public School Closures on Crime: The Case of the 2013 Chicago Mass School Closure

By on April 28, 2020 in Articles

Noli Brazil

Sociological Science April 28, 2020
10.15195/v7.a6

Abstract
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Public school closures are increasing in number and size in U.S. cities. In response, parents, teachers, and public school advocates argue that closures carry negative consequences for multiple institutions across a wide set of outcomes. One such institution is the local neighborhood, and a negative consequence that is frequently raised is increased crime. I test this claim by using the 2013 Chicago mass school closure as a case study. Rather than conceiving of a school closure as a binary event (closed or not closed) I break it out according to a school’s status after closure: vacant, repurposed, and merged with an existing school. I find that vacancy and repurposing into a nonschool are associated with decreased crime. In contrast, merging a closed school with an existing school is associated with increased crime. The vacancy and repurposing effects are spatiotemporally localized, concentrated in the 75-meter area surrounding the school and disappearing after a year, whereas the student merger effect persisted over time across larger spatial scales. My results suggest that the relationship between closure and neighborhood crime is not straightforward, varying by postclosure land use status and spatiotemporal factors.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Noli Brazil: Department of Human Ecology, University of California, Davis
E-mail: nbrazil@ucdavis.edu

Acknowledgements: I thank Luis Guarnizo, Andrew Papachristos, and Jenna Stearns for generously reading previous versions and providing invaluable feedback. I also thank Enrica Jiang for data collection and research assistance. Any remaining errors are mine alone.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Brazil, Noli. 2020. “Effects of Public School Closures on Crime: The Case of the 2013 Chicago Mass School Closure.” Sociological Science 7: 128-151.
  • Received: January 9, 2020
  • Accepted: February 22, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a6


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School Choice, Neighborhood Change, and Racial Imbalance Between Public Elementary Schools and Surrounding Neighborhoods

By on March 25, 2020 in Articles

Kendra Bischoff, Laura Tach

Sociological Science March 25, 2020
10.15195/v7.a4

Abstract
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The expansion of school choice in recent years has potentially generated demographic imbalances between traditional public schools and their residential attendance zones. Demographic imbalances emerge from selective opting out, when families of certain racial and/or ethnic backgrounds disproportionately choose not to enroll in their neighborhood-based public schools. In this article, we use a unique data set of school attendance zones in 21 large U.S. school districts to show how changes in neighborhood conditions and school choice options influence race-specific enrollments in locally zoned public elementary schools from 2000 to 2010. We find that the presence of more school-choice options generates racial imbalances between public elementary schools and their surrounding neighborhoods, but this association differs by type of choice-based alternative. Private schools, on average, reduce the presence of non-Hispanic white students in locally zoned schools, whereas charter schools may reduce the presence of nonwhite students in locally zoned schools. Increases in neighborhood-school racial imbalances from 2000 to 2010 were concentrated in neighborhoods undergoing increases in socioeconomic status, suggesting that parents’ residential and school decisions are dynamic and sensitive to changing neighborhood conditions. Selective opting out has implications for racial integration in schools and the distribution of familial resources across educational contexts.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Kendra Bischoff: Department of Sociology, Cornell University
E-mail: kbischoff@cornell.edu

Laura Tach: Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University
E-mail: lmt88@cornell.edu

Acknowledgements: This project was funded by the Cornell Center for Social Sciences. Bischoff was also supported by a National Academy of Education–Spencer Foundation fellowship. We would like to thank Salvatore Saporito for generously sharing the school attendance boundary data he collected for the 1999–2000 school year. This project would not have been possible without it. We also thank Chenoa Flippen, Peter Rich, Steven Alvarado, Matt Hall, Anna Haskins, and Erin York Cornwell for their comments on previous versions of this article.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Bischoff, Kendra, and Laura Tach. 2020. “School Choice, Neighborhood Change, and Racial Imbalance Between Public Elementary Schools and Surrounding Neighborhoods.” Sociological Science 7: 75-99.
  • Received: July 1, 2019
  • Accepted: January 16, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a4


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Danger on the Way to School: Exposure to Violent Crime, Public Transportation, and Absenteeism

By on February 13, 2019 in Articles

Julia Burdick-Will, Marc L. Stein, Jeffrey Grigg

Sociological Science, February 13, 2019
10.15195/v6.a5

Abstract
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In this study, we propose and test a mechanism for the effect of neighborhood of residence on school outcomes: absenteeism that results from exposure to danger on the way to school. We first determine the most efficient route to school using public transportation for 4,200 first-time freshmen in Baltimore City public high schools. Then, we link the specific streets along the most efficient route to incident-level crime data from the Baltimore Police Department. We find that students whose estimated routes require walking along streets with higher violent-crime rates have higher rates of absenteeism throughout the year. We also show that absenteeism is not associated with exposure to dangerous streets while riding on public transit and exposure to property crime.These conclusions hold with and without adjustments for student demographic characteristics, prior school attendance, violent crime around homes and schools, and unobserved differences related to school preference and neighborhood selection.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Julia Burdick-Will: Department of Sociology and School of Education, Johns Hopkins University
E-mail: jburdickwill@jhu.edu

Marc L. Stein: School of Education, Johns Hopkins University
E-mail: m.stein@jhu.edu

Jeffrey Grigg: School of Education, Johns Hopkins University
E-mail: jgrigg1@jhu.edu

Acknowledgements: This research was made possible by a grant from the Spencer Foundation and indirect support from the Baltimore Education Research Consortium and the Hopkins Population Center. Curt Cronister provided invaluable technical support. We are grateful for the feedback from and assistance of the Baltimore City Public Schools.All errors and opinions are our own.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Burdick-Will, Julia,Mark L. Stein, and Jeffrey Grigg. 2019. “Danger on the Way to School: Exposure to Violent Crime, Public Transportation, and Absenteeism.” Sociological Science 6: 118-142.
  • Received: November 8, 2018
  • Accepted: December 31, 2018
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v6.a5


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