What happens when we stop thinking about schools as buildings—and start seeing them as the ecosystems that hold our communities together?

In this episode, we sit with Dr. Mara Tieken to explore school closures not as isolated decisions, but as part of a broader pattern of spatial injustice—where resources, opportunities, and care are unevenly distributed based on where we live.

Together, we wrestle with a hard truth: school closures are often framed as inevitable… but what if they’re actually the result of choices—policies, priorities, and patterns of disinvestment—that we can question?

We grapple with several key ideas:

• Schools are more than buildings—they are social, cultural, and economic anchors in our communities
• Closures disproportionately impact Black, Brown, and low-income communities
• The most common justifications (cost savings, academic improvement, “efficiency”) often don’t hold up under scrutiny
• What gets labeled as a “failing school” is often a school that has been failed—by policy, funding, and systemic neglect
• School closures don’t just disrupt students—they create lasting grief, loss, and disconnection across generations

This conversation also reminds us that we are not powerless. Across the country, communities are:

• Organizing and building multiracial, cross-class coalitions
• Questioning the data and narratives used to justify closures
• Running for school board, advocating for policy change, and showing up for each other’s schools—not just our own

We are left wondering, what would it look like to treat every school as our school? Not just when it’s under threat—but all the time.

Because if public schools are foundational to our democracy, then caring for them can’t be an individual act. It has to be collective.

LINKS:

• Dr. Tieken's Hechinger Report Op-Ed - Shuttering public schools is a strategy that rarely saves much money and often leads to test score declines
• And from The Washington Monthly - Don't Fall for the School Closure Temptation
• Rural Schools Open - Dr. Tieken's guide to fighting school closures and doing it well, when needed.
• Dr. Eve L Ewing - Ghosts in the Schoolyard
• And Dr. Ewing on our show - S11E12: Schools and Race: Eve Ewing on the Construction of American Racism

 

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The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced by Andrew Lefkowits and Val Brown. It was edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

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