Block Club Chicago

In Austin on Chicago’s West Side, a high school built for 1,000 students now houses just 58. Three-quarters of a mile away, another high school has just over 200 students in a campus for 2,000.

The problem isn’t just high schools, nor just in Austin. In Chicago, which is experiencing a slow population leak, the district has lost 54,100 public school children in the past decade. That has left 145 district-run schools less than half-full, according to new capacity data...