School closings pose big challenge for Chicago Public Schools

As the saying goes, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Unfortunately, that saying does not bode well for the thousands of children who will be displaced when 54 schools shut down this year.

It’s also a bad omen for communities. The last thing Englewood, Austin or any of the neighborhoods — most of them poor and black — that stand to lose schools need is another boarded-up vacant building...