Modeling School Utilization and Consolidation

Abstract

Closing schools is a difficult task. Such decisions are often made and discussed in an emotionally charged atmosphere. Since there are usually a number of alternatives, researchers have argued for the use of multiobjective programming models that can aid in the generation and analysis of school‐closing alternatives. Diamond and Wright have developed one of the most recent models for the analysis of school‐system consolidation. Their model expressively addresses the optimization of school closing and resulting school utilization. We demonstrate that the Diamond and Wright model has an unintended bias in its formulation that may selectively choose smaller‐capacity schools to close. This paper presents a revised formulation of the Diamond and Wright model that eliminates this bias and takes less time to solve. Two school‐districting problems are solved that depict the inherent problems associated with the original formulation of Diamond and Wright and demonstrate the merits of the revised model formulation.