Kansas City to Close Nearly Half Its Schools

Kansas City to Close Nearly Half Its Schools
By SUSAN SAULNY
COPYRIGHT BY THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: March 10, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/us/11kansascity.html?hpw


KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Board of Education voted Wednesday night to close almost half of the city’s public schools, accepting a sweeping and contentious plan to shrink the system in the face of dwindling enrollment, budget cuts and a $50 million deficit.

In a 5-to-4 vote, the members endorsed the Right-Size plan, proposed by the schools superintendent, John Covington, to close 28 of the city’s 61 schools and cut 700 of 3,000 jobs, including those of 285 teachers. The closings are expected to save $50 million, erasing the deficit from the $300 million budget.

“We must make sacrifices,” said board member Joel Pelofsky, speaking in favor of the plan before the vote. “Unite in favor of our children.”

Mr. Pelofsky and other supporters of the closures made their case with the district’s data: enrollment has declined by half in the last 10 years alone, to 17,400 children, and the schools are only 48 percent full.

For decades, national education experts said, the Kansas City schools had not responded to changes in demographics that would have spared them such a drastic one-time cut. “Otherwise, this whole scenario would not be as wrenching as it now appears to be,” Michael Casserly, the executive director of The Council of the Great City Schools, a research and advocacy organization, said in a telephone interview.

An auditorium packed with children’s advocates and parents, some holding signs and screaming at board members, rejected that line of thinking.

“Where’s my daughter going to go?” wondered a parent, Rasheedah Hazziez, 33, after the vote. “I don’t have a car. What happened to the time when our schools had a future? I live in Midtown and we already had too many vacant buildings. Now we’re going to have more? I guess we’ll just keep falling.”

Less than a third of elementary students in the city schools read at or above grade level. And in most of the schools, fewer than a quarter of students are proficient at their grade levels. District officials say the closings will improve achievement by allowing the system to focus its resources.