D.C. Council members fear schools near tipping point as students flee system "If we don't become very serious about marketing and competing" with charter schools, Catania said, "traditional public schools, as we know them, will become a thing of the past." Charter schools have grown quickly in the District during the past 15 years and now enroll more than 40 percent of the city's public school students, leaving the traditional school system with half-empty buildings in many neighborhoods - and something of an existential crisis. "On the one hand, we all support high-performing charters, and we support choice for our families," Henderson said. But at the same time, we want [the school system] to be robust and to provide everything under the sun. Henderson says that closing some small schools will allow her to redirect resources from administration and maintenance to teaching and learning, creating the kind of academic offerings - such as art and music programs, modern libraries and elementary-school foreign language classes - that will attract families. But on Wednesday, the chancellor offered few details about how she intends to redirect savings to strengthen schools. Such specifics won't be available until school budgets are determined for the 2013-14 school year, she said. Schools officials said they expect the closings to save $8.5 million annually, a little more than 1 percent of the system's total $800 million budget. But critics of the chancellor's plan question whether the system will save even that much, particularly given the costs of mothballing school buildings, including moving and storing furniture and materials. Some council members and activists fear that closing traditional public schools will push students into charters, leading to further enrollment losses and future closures. Previous closures have not resulted in demonstrably stronger schools, increased enrollment or leaps in student achievement, they say. "At best, under-enrollment is a symptom of an underlying disease of inattention and neglect," said council member Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 7), whose ward is home to four of the 15 schools slated to close. Long-standing neglect should not be used as a justification to close schools and shift the problem without first adequately addressing the root cause. When the city shuttered 23 schools in 2008, students from the closed schools were more than twice as likely to enroll in a charter school as students from other schools. This time, 2,600 students are to be displaced, and Catania asked Henderson to explain how she would ensure that they wouldn't leave the system.