A surprising look at what happens to the actual school buildings in the wake of school closures.

School districts across the United States have closed thousands of schools since 2000 to cope with chronic underfunding and budget crises, declining enrollment, and poorly maintained buildings. Our knowledge about school closures has focused on battles over closure decision-making and the impacts of closing schools on communities of color in the immediate aftermath of these decisions. But what of the large, sometimes magisterial, formerly public spaces once at the center of community life? How do these now vacant buildings change daily life in the surrounding neighborhood?

In Schools for Sale, Julia McWilliams, Ariel H. Bierbaum, Amy J. Bach, and Elaine Simon examine how school closures change the spatial and social arrangements of neighborhoods. Following a series of school closures in Philadelphia, the authors draw from research in urban studies, education, planning, and geography to explain how race, place, and capital merge to influence the trajectory of closed schools in Black and Brown communities and their surrounding neighborhoods. Some closed schools are repurposed as charter schools, upending the role those buildings have historically played in bringing communities together. Other buildings are sold for commercial development, caught up in cycles of gentrification even as developers foster programs to support community members. Others are left vacant or are demolished in the heart of their neighborhoods, decisions that reflect not only disinvestment in Black communities but the sobering reality of environmental racism.

Drawing needed attention to one of the significant consequences of school closures, Schools for Sale imparts a deeper understanding of the connections between place, race, and education amid broader urban transformations, prompting us to consider how school districts can work toward a new vision for public education and community development.

Ariel Bierbaum, PhD is an associate professor of urban studies and planning at the University of Maryland’s School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education in the Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership. Her cross-disciplinary research connects the fields of urban studies, planning, and public education. Dr. Bierbaum uses qualitative methods and draws from interdisciplinary scholarship in planning, community development, policy studies, and geography to consider how the physical and social dimensions of schools and neighborhoods and cross-sector collaborative governance shape structures of metropolitan inequality and, by extension, students’ and families’ lived experiences. Dr. Bierbaum has over 25 years of experience in the non-profit and public sectors, working in public policy, cross-sector collaboration, community development, and community arts. She holds a PhD in City and Regional Planning from the UC-Berkeley, a Master in City Planning from MIT, and a BA in urban studies from the University of Pennsylvania. She is originally from New Jersey and grew up in Free Acres, a utopian community founded in 1910 based on the principles of Henry George. After 7 years in Philadelphia and 12 years in Oakland, CA, she and her family now live in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland.

Amy J. Bach, PhD is an associate professor of literacy/biliteracy education in the College of Education at the University of Texas at El Paso and the Provost’s Faculty Fellow for Community Engagement.  Dr. Bach uses ethnographic and discourse analytic methodologies to study the social and institutional contexts in which literacy is practiced and how these practices differ in value, method, and purpose across different sites and contexts. She also uses visual texts – their production and analysis through visual methodologies – to deepen understandings of educational policies and their effect on urban schools and communities. Her research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Greater Texas Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation; her work has been published in Anthropology & Education Quarterly; Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies; Journal of Literacy Research; Cultural Anthropology and The Society of Cultural Anthropology’s collaborative Writing with Light initiative, among others. Dr. Bach holds an Ed.D. in Reading/Writing/Literacy from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, her MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Teachers College, and her BA with Honors in Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.  Originally from Milwaukee, WI, she lived 14 years in Philadelphia and now resides in El Paso, TX with her family.

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