Columbus students are not the problem. Adults are. Closing schools not the answer.

Rhodesia McMillian is an assistant professor of education policy at Ohio State University.

The anniversary of the May 17, 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court decision is Friday.

Instead of forming a multidisciplinary task force to create progressive and innovative educational initiatives in honor of the 70th anniversary of Brown and reignite hope in public education, Columbus City Schools leadership convened a group focused on identifying which schools to shutter and consolidate.

This decision is another example of the counterproductive culture of Columbus City Schools’ leadership.

Closing schools breaks trust

Let's be clear: students are not the problem; the adults are.  Unfortunately, this is par for the course when it comes to shuttering schools.

Closing schools occur primarily in urban areas with a majority of populations of color.

Whether it is Philadelphia Public Schools, Chicago Public Schools, or Washington, D. C. Public Schools, leaders frame the public narrative to shutter schools as a remedy for “space underutilization” and often do not gain the financial relief they seek.

The consistent narrative and discursive practices across urban school districts raise doubts about the necessity of the closures and diminish public trust in school leadership.

What happens at the meeting before the meeting

In my studies of the discursive practices of school shuttering, I have observed standard practices among them.

I want to share these insights with those concerned about the future of Columbus City Schools. Unfortunately, school closures frequently occur under undisclosed pretexts—only to be revealed in the aftermath. The narrative school leaders present to the public often differs, starkly, from discussions held in private meetings.

There is always a meeting before the meeting. Leaders often promise transparency and collaborative community engagement. However, “engagement” is positioned as a routine task or a marketing ploy rather than a shared decision-making process involving those most affected by the closures.

More: Flawed work to close city schools will hurt Columbus for years to come. It must be fixed.

Supporters of school shuttering often rely on statistics and impersonal means to justify school closures, neglecting the real-life consequences. You cannot solve a qualitative issue with a quantitative mindset.

Shuttering schools will not remedy Columbus City Schools’s systemic challenges; it will exacerbate them.

School closures add strain to an already weakened infrastructure, and it is often our most vulnerable students (e.g., students with special needs) and those who serve them who feel the brunt of the disparate impact.

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What Columbus City Schools should do

In the era of extreme absenteeism, a step towards progress and excellence would be to invest ideas, time, and money into reducing Columbus City Schools’ truancy rate, which is above 50%.

If recovering these students was a priority, reducing facilities would not be necessary.

Schools, students, and families are the cornerstone of communities, and closing schools is an affront to them and against excellence.

In 1954, the SCOTUS wrote, “We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation.”

There are more urgent needs than shuttering schools, and the largest school district in Ohio should be a vanguard for compelling, inclusive, rigorous, and innovative curricula and practices, not the model for school shuttering.

Rhodesia McMillian is an assistant professor of education policy at Ohio State University. Her research focuses on local, state, and federal education policies and how they impact school governance and students’ educational experiences.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Closing Columbus schools will make district's problems worse