A recent PDK International poll reported that American's don't like it when schools get closed. They much prefer troubled schools get new leadership and/or staff. Eighty-four percent of the public prefers fixing struggling schools while just 14 percent want to close them.
But school closings, while they can be traumatic for students and educators who have remained at a school, aren't as common as you may think -- and even when they happen they don't necessarily mean a building is being shuttered. As noted in this recent opinion piece, the "nuclear" option happens only 1-2 percent of the time, usually after an all-hands-on-deck effort to turn things around and/or dwindling enrollment.
According to the NCES Fast Facts page, roughly 1,-2,000 of the nation's 99,000 schools have been closed over the years, fluctuating from a low of 1,2000 to a high of 2,200. And of course schools being closed doesn't necessarily mean that a school building is being shuttered. New schools are opened on the same site, or other schools within the same facility are enlarged.
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