School Closure Ball Rolling in Seattle

The Seattle School District was slapped down last year when they looked at school closures, but this time it seems like they have their act together, as per this from the Seattle Times. I worry a bit about them putting race and class into the mix as they look at what schools to close--it seems like the argument to close a school might work better if you kept things to a strictly numerical/budgetary context--but the reality is that you can't keep race out of the discussion, so good for the district for tackling the issue head-on.

One interesting quote from a companion article talks about how these school closures won't be as much help in closing Seattle's $20 million dollar budget hole as they had initially hoped. One quote in the article that invites comment:

It's still not clear what Seattle Public Schools would do with the 12 empty buildings it will have if it accepts the committee's recommendations.

Some could be rented, others left empty or leased short-term. Some could be sold.

The Fordham Foundation has been pounding the charter drum for a number of years, and one of their points has been the uneven access that charter schools have to quality facilities (see here for a related story out of New York). I'd love to see what a group like KIPP could do in a place like Seattle. The trick is that we're a good NEA state, and the voters have been consistent in saying no to charter schools and vouchers. It would be sad to just see these buildings go to waste, though (and I say that as the son of a sad, sad Queen Anne High alum).