Nicole Stelle Garnett

Catholic Schools, Urban Neighborhoods, and Education Reform

More than 1,600 Catholic elementary and secondary schools have closed or been consolidated during the last two decades. The Archdiocese of Chicago alone (the subject of our study) has closed 148 schools since 1984. Primarily because urban Catholic schools have a strong track record of educating disadvantaged children who do not, generally, fare well in public schools, these school closures have prompted concern in education policy circles. While we are inclined to agree that Catholic school closures contribute to a broader educational crisis, this paper shies away from debates about educational outcomes. Rather than focusing on the work done inside the schools, we focus on what goes on outside them. Specifically, using three decades of data drawn from the census and from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (“PHDCN”), we seek to understand what a Catholic school means to an urban neighborhood. We do so primarily by measuring various effects of elementary school closures in the Chicago neighborhoods where they operated for decades. We find strong evidence that Catholic elementary schools are important generators of social capital in urban neighborhoods: Our study suggests that neighborhood social cohesion decreases and disorder increases following an elementary school closure, even after controlling for numerous demographic variables that would tend to predict neighborhood decline and disaggregating the school closure decision from those variable as well. This paper discusses these findings and situates them within important land-use and education-policy debates.

Catholic Schools and Broken Windows

Our previous work has suggested that the closure of Catholic elementary schools generates disorder and suppresses social cohesion in urban neighborhoods — findings that support the conclusion that Catholic elementary schools create neighborhood social capital. We extend our inquiry here by asking if Catholic school closures might also affect crime rates. Using factors independent from neighborhood indicators, specifically school and parish leadership characteristics, we created an exogenous factor that predicted which Catholic schools might close in urban Chicago, and used that factor, with sociodemographic variables, to predict police-beat-level crime rates. We find that Catholic school closures slow the rate of decline of crime in a police beat compared to beats with no Catholic school closure. We also find that higher perceived disorder predicted higher initial levels of crime. Our findings provide insight into which policing policies are effective and the benefits of involving religious institutions in crime-prevention efforts. They also lend support to “school-choice�? mechanisms, such as vouchers or tax credits, that would provide financial resources to students attending urban Catholic schools.

Planning as Public Use

This short Essay explores the Supreme Courts suggestion in Kelo v. New London that public, participatory planning may be a constitutional safe harbor that separates impermissible private takings from presumptively valid public ones. After briefly reviewing the Courts discussion of the planning that preceded the Kelo litigation, the Essay examines how Kelos emphasis on planning departs from standard rational basis review of economic policies and asks what such a departure means for future public-use litigants. The Essay then explores three possible practical benefits of a constitutional rule that encourages the government to engage in detailed planning before exercising the power of eminent domain: First, can public, participatory planning help legitimize so-called economic-development takings? Second, was the Court correct to assume that planning will limit pretextual takings, i.e., the taking of private property in the name of economic development but for the true purpose of benefiting a private individual? And third, will careful planning by the government lead to more successful projects?

The People Paradox

U.S. land-use regulators are increasingly embracing mixed-land-use “urban” neighborhoods, rather than single-land-use “suburban” ones, as a planning ideal. This shift away from traditional regulatory practice reflects a growing endorsement of Jane Jacobs’s influential argument that mixed-land-use urban neighborhoods are safer and more socially cohesive than single-land-use suburban ones. Proponents of regulatory reforms encouraging greater mixing of residential and commercial land uses, however, completely disregard a sizable empirical literature suggesting that commercial land use generates, rather than suppress, crime and disorder, and that suburban communities have higher levels of social capital than urban communities. This Article constructs a case for mixed-land-use planning that tackles the uncomfortable reality that these studies present. That case is built upon an apparent paradox: in urban communities, people do not, apparently, make us safer. But they do make us feel safer. This “People Paradox” suggests that, despite an apparent tension between city busyness and safety, land-use regulations that enable mixed-land-use neighborhoods may advance several important urban development goals. It also suggests an often-overlooked connection between land-use and policing policies.

Catholic Schools and Broken Windows: Catholic Schools and Broken Windows

Our previous work has suggested that the closure of Catholic elementary schools generates disorder and suppresses social cohesion in urban neighborhoods — findings that support the conclusion that Catholic elementary schools create neighborhood social capital. We extend our inquiry here by asking if Catholic school closures might also affect crime rates. Using factors independent from neighborhood indicators, specifically school and parish leadership characteristics, we created an exogenous factor that predicted which Catholic schools might close in urban Chicago, and used that factor, with sociodemographic variables, to predict police-beat-level crime rates. We find that Catholic school closures slow the rate of decline of crime in a police beat compared to beats with no Catholic school closure. We also find that higher perceived disorder predicted higher initial levels of crime. Our findings provide insight into which policing policies are effective and the benefits of involving religious institutions in crime-prevention efforts. They also lend support to “school-choice” mechanisms, such as vouchers or tax credits, that would provide financial resources to students attending urban Catholic schools.

Save the Cities, Stop the Suburbs?

This Essay reviews two recent books: Robert Bruegmann, Sprawl: A Compact History and Joel Kotkin, The City: A Global History. Bruegmann, an architectural historian, makes an important contribution to the thinking about suburban sprawl by placing current development patterns in historical context. Bruegmann builds a strong case that the costs of limits on suburban development - especially the reduction in the supply of affordable housing - might well outweigh their benefits. His failure to consider whether measures other than suburban growth restrictions might enliven cities, however, is a serious shortcoming. The Essay suggests that urban officials must find ways to make cities, in Kotkins words, sacred, safe, and busy, places again. The Essay urges local governments to examine how city land use policies (as opposed to suburban ones) affect urban life and suggests that city officials must address inevitable tensions between safety and busyness and between busyness and beauty.

School Closures as Education Reform: New Evidence from Chicago and Ohio

This short essay reviews two recent academic studies of public school closures: The first study examines 198 charter and district schools closed in Ohio between 2006 and 2014, the second 47 district schools in 2013 and Ohio. Both studies suggest that the academic effects of closing failing schools likely will be positive, especially when the closures result in students transferring to higher-performing schools.