As districts nationwide weigh school closures to shore up their budgets, new research reveals the fiscal payoff doesn’t always materialize in California.
For school districts facing enrollment declines and mounting budget pressures, closing schools seems like an obvious – if often contentious – way to get finances back on track. But new research from Stanford suggests the reality is not so open-and-shut.
A study drawing on data from all California public school districts between 2011 and 2019 found that those entering a period of school closures did not, on average, improve their financial standing, and that fiscal returns were curbed by enrollment declines brought on by the closures.
While districts reduced spending after closures, they also saw decreased revenue, resulting in essentially no measurable improvement in their budgetary challenges overall.
“A common thread we hear from decision-makers around school closures is that, at the end of the day, these moves are necessary for financial reasons,” said Francis Pearman, an assistant professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) and author of the study. “But school closures are complex restructuring tools that don’t always play out in expected ways.”
The findings were released in conjunction with Getting Down to Facts III, a 2026 review of California’s public education system led by GSE Professor Susanna Loeb, faculty director of the SCALE Initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning.