Test, Measure, Punish: How the Threat of Closure Harms Students, Destroys Teachers, and Fails Schools

Winner, 2026 Pierre Bourdieu Book Award, given by the American Sociological Association, Sociology of Education Section

The risk of closure and repression in schools

In the last two decades, education officials have closed a rising number of public schools nationwide related to low performance. These schools are mainly located in neglected neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty. Despite this credible threat of closure, relatively few individual schools threatened with closure for l...