In Black America; Legacy of Slavery Still Impacts Education in the South, with H. O'Connell and Robert Reese

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is in Black America. There's like a growing segment of research that seeks to examine how the legacy of slavery continues to shape social outcomes in the American South. We wanted to try to speak to that work a little bit and examine a part of it that hadn't been looked at before up until that point, which is cool segregation in the South which has a long and troubled history in this region, especially as we show in the paper related to places where slavery was a major part of the economy. Robert L. Reese, a PhD in the Sociology Department at Duke University, and co-thorough how the legacy of slavery and racial composition shaped public school enrollment in the American South.

Slavery was about as more than one and fifty years ago, but it's effects. I still felt today in K through 12 education in the South according to a new Rice University study. The study found that African-American population concentration relationship only holds in the original Confederate states or the deep South. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. Using regression analysis to explain differences in the degree of attendance disparities across most counties in the South. Researchers found a correlation between historically geographic slave concentration and modern K through 12 segregation. An increase in slave concentration is related to greater underrepresentation of white students and public schools. The result suggests that the legacy of slavery contributes to black white education disparities through greater public-private school racial segregation. I'm Johnny Johansson Jr. and welcome to another edition of in Black America. On this week's program, how the legacy of slavery and racial composition

shaped public school in Roman in the American South with co-author Robert L. Reece and Heather O'Connell in Black America? That is a real struggle of this field of study in general. I think it's hard to wrap your head around it, right? That 150 years ago something happened and today it still matters. But I think, Robert, I think that you're going to be able to talk about this a little bit more based on your dissertation research, but I think what it's what's important to remember is that there are a lot of things that are happening during that time that that are also partially partially a legacy of slavery. It's not as if once it were abolished that it were completely gone. So things were still happening in that interim period and and it's possible that in places where slavery was most entrenched or places that were most dependent on that slave labor that things continued after the fact to to help reinforce those foundational ideas that that were what slavery was all about or

what it was based on. Heather O'Connell, a post-doctoral fellow at Rice University Kindle Institute for Urban Research. The legacy of slavery still impacts education in the South. Slavery was abolished more than 150 years ago, but its effects are still felt today in K through 12 education in the South according to a new Rice University study. The study found that African-American population concentration relationship only holds in the original Confederate states or the deep South. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. Even with the added dimensions the researchers were unable to identify tangible county characteristics that explained why slave concentration from 1860 is related to contemporary school enrollment patterns. Understanding the role of slavery provides insight into the structural foundation supporting this segregation which might be valuable to efforts to reverse dangerous trends

and school resegregation has been increasing across the South over the last few decades. Recently in Black America spoke with co-author Heather O'Connell, a post-doctoral fellow at Rice University Kindle Institute for Urban Research and Robert L. Reese, a Ph.D. candidate at Duke University. The core of the data is coming from the census. It's all secondary data sources and it's for the counties in the among the southern states and the tricky part of about the data is connecting that that historical data that's telling us what the concentration of slaves look like in 1860 because counties in 1860 what the data are reported for is what counties were in 1860 and that doesn't match up with what we see today. So we had to do some finagling to try to match up those spaces but that was really the only tricky part and once you have all of this information together then

we did what's called a regression analysis which is just a fancy way of saying that we compare places that are very similar to each other and while controlling for other factors the regression analysis will tell you how closely related particular variables are to your outcome so in our case we were most interested in how closely related is the historical concentration of slaves to to the current level of segregation between public and private schools for black and white students. When you look at the segregation of of students was it more so economically or was it I guess we'll say class at the division of of how African-American students were educated. That's a good question Robert do you want to? You know when we look we included some measures of social economic status some included a measure of income and a measure of poverty

and a measure of education of the entire county and we also included the measure for school quality and it seemed that despite all of those things that slavery and the percentage of black students in the schools and in the county were the the strongest factors driving driving this white disinvestment from the public schools system to enroll in in private schools which was driving one of the forces driving segregation in these areas. Yeah so we didn't look specifically at where the segregation is coming from but as Robert was saying that since we're controlling for these other factors that would be related to economic differences what we're showing is that that these relationships are independent of economic segregation or any segregation that we might

think was related to economic circumstances and there's been some recent research that shows that black white segregation is much less about there's more black white segregation than left over after you account for segregation that's based on economic factors. When you are conducting the study was the the information in which you ascertain dealt with enrollment in public in private schools from both spectrums, from both fans, African-American student versus white students. We looked at it in a variety of ways while we were working things out but eventually we decided to go with to look at racial disparities in enrollment in public school under the assumption that there's only two types of schools that you can involve broadly there's only two types of schools you can be enrolled in public schools and private schools and if black students are more likely to enroll in public schools i mean

there's a white student by extension must be more likely to enroll in the private schools. When you look at geographically slave concentration I'm trying to wrap around the concept if slavery was a ballad say 150 years ago and we're still singing these lingering messages what has happened during that period in your analysis? That is that is a real struggle of this field of study in general I think it's it's hard to wrap your head around it right that 150 years ago something happened and today it still matters but I think and I Robert I think that you're going to be able to talk about this a little bit more based on your dissertation research but I think what it's what's important to remember is that there are a lot of things that are happening during that time that that are also partially partially a legacy of slavery it's not it's not as if once it were abolished that it were completely gone

so things were still happening in that interim period and and it's possible that in places where slavery was most entrenched or places that were most dependent on that slave labor that things continued after the fact to to help reinforce those foundational ideas that that were what slavery was all about or what it was based on Robert did you want to add to that? Right this is just let that slavery like the institution of slavery of fourth counties to erect certain types of systems certain types of institutions to try to maintain the economy that they used that they used during antebellum slavery in our case we argue that school segregation was was fundamental to maintaining to maintaining the economy in places where slavery was strongest for example in places with

they relied on plantation economy likely cotton in the deep south they didn't want to educate they didn't want to educate black people black workers they didn't want them to have the opportunity to to get better job to leave the plantation so so school segregation giving these black people inferior schools was a fundamental was fundamental to maintaining the economy in these areas and that legacy continued all through the decades when school integration in counties were forced to integrate in the 60s and 70s these private schools cropped up and which allowed white students ways to avoid school integration because they had become a part of the way of life of these areas when you when you look at the Confederate states Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas and you look at the educational attainment of these African-American

populations how is that legacy of slavery affecting one dropout rates and those who continue their education through 12th grade obviously there must be some lingering effects that those are interested in education on really fielded education is essential for open mobility it was that part of the narrative? I think that that's part of the the background motivation I think at least based on other work segregation resident or racial segregation is is very important for understanding subsequent achievement particularly for for black students I think and so that does if it happens that segregation also helps isolate black students and potentially have access to lower quality education then yes if you're in a school that

it seems like the educational system doesn't really care about you then any student is going to be more likely to drop out and to do less well in school so that is sort of a second step consequence of what we're studying but our study doesn't speak directly to what the legacy of slavery consequences are for educational achievement and attainment when you when you look at the the system in itself obviously segregation still exists but I'm trying to wrap my brain around you're still in 2015 have individuals that are first generation college graduates when you're looking at slavery been abolished like I say 150 years ago so in these particular counties are the counties themselves still maintaining the status quo or they're still trying to get up from under what transpired

or doing slavery that's what we argue we argue that that slavery actually alters the characteristics of the places that it alters the county okay so that so that it's not necessarily the people per say so it's not so we aren't asking the question whether I as a descendant of slaves is more or less likely to go to a private school it's the question is whether black people who live in this place are more or less likely to go to a private school and it's so we argue that it is about the places that it's about institutions such as like just the availability of private schools right like web types of places even have private schools with this strong racial legacy it's about the way of life of these places has been cultivated over the last century

and a half so it's actually yes we're talking about about places and what places do and how they facilitate the actions of people now when you look at these counties are these small counties that are not associated or connected to large metropolitan areas are we chicken I guess I'm I'm asking are these rural areas that we basically were speaking of that had a basically a large concentration of African-Americans so we're in the in the paper we're looking at all of the counties all at one time but we are controlling for whether or not it's it's a it contains a large metropolitan area so basically what that ends up mean meaning is that this argument about the legacy of slavery applies with even within metropolitan counties so even if it does have a large urban center today then it is it is just as true that among those types of counties that

higher concentration of slaves is related to a higher level of segregation than we would have otherwise expected in any particular reason why this type of study hasn't taken place prior to you all's in depth people just lazy or didn't think it was important I think it's Robert go ahead it may be well the field is relatively new okay so before this one is there they're probably less than around 10 of those studies that do something really close to this and there may be I think it's over a variety of reasons one is like Heather said earlier I'm in difficult to work with historical data because of because the geographic units change over time and I think that may be one of the larger barriers and so folks have started picking up on this topic a good bit more

yeah and partly because because the historical data are now more easily available once one person does it then we can just all share with each other how prevalent was white flight a part of of you all's narrative when when you look at the totality of the study I think if I'll just jump in the I think the the idea about white flight and just is that there's a general avoidance of black populations so this is more of more a specific part of our analysis and when we're talking about the relationship between black population concentration and and school segregation but it's also so that's the more traditional way to think about white flight but white flight is also happening more generally you you can't really you can't really talk about how the legacy of slavery is affecting school segregation

without also thinking that there might be white flight processes involved and so that it's just that it might it might be that it just happens at a lower level of black concentration white flight is just it's more sensitive to the number of black folks who are in a school or who are in the area that sort of thing um so it it was it was a big part of our story but it's it's a really difficult topic to to sort of pin down an quantitative analysis I think right if you're just joining us I'm John L. Hanson Jr. and you're listening to in black America from KUT Radio and we're speaking of Dr. Heather O'Connell postdoctoral fellow at Rice University Kinder Institute for Urban Research and Robert L. Rees Ph.D. Kennedy Duke University and Department of Sociology they are co-authors of the study legacy of slavery still impacts education in the south heaven forbid that these counties are still operating under

a false sense of honesty but the question I have is that are some of these counties still with the mindset that African-American children don't need to be educated well we can't we can't measure that directly but we're giving us some sufficient resources for quality education I guess that'd be the caveat to that that question and yeah so other studies other studies have shown that I don't think that people don't necessarily believe that per se as much as there's still an ongoing stigma against attending attending schools with black students and that and other studies are other studies on education and schools aggregation so they consistently that white parents have an aversion to sending their students sending their children to schools whether they're going to be a lot of

black students Dr. O'Connell in your comment? No that that pretty much that pretty much gets at it we we really it is really difficult to say what it is that that these places the school districts within the counties or the counties themselves believe about the education that would that would just be a whole different approach than what we took something that might be beneficial but not something that we can speak to at this time and I think yeah it it is important to remember that it's not we we do live in a different time even though we are still influenced by our history there there are a lot of conversations and sociology about how the way that Americans present things is different and so as Robert was saying Americans don't say directly that black students don't do well or don't deserve this but just that my white student does deserve this and does do this well so it's just

it's just more of a protection of self rather than an explicit disadvantage of other doing your survey and analysis when you look at the counties were there any information ascertain as far as the number of African-American students who are education eligible I guess that will be be determined those that were eligible for education those that actually took part in the educational process those that dropped out and those that graduated K through 12 was that part of the study? no we didn't look at that we only examined the the students were actually in school at the time and whether or not what type of school they attended whether or not they attended a public school or private school and looking at those those numbers were the students in school relative to the numbers of the children that were in that county?

uh yes so um yes so the number is so we use so we use only the students who were in school the number of well I guess so the number of of children in the county ultimately didn't matter for one like most children are in school okay the overwhelming majority of children are generally in school but um but only the children that were in school actually matter for our analysis we didn't look at the number of students who made the number of school age children who may not be in school when I guess I don't know if I asked this question but when you looked at the schools were the schools in which African Americans attended versus the schools that the majority white students attended were they on par or separate and unequal? I guess that's the question so since we were focusing specifically on the counties we don't we don't have the specifics on the schools or we at least didn't keep that in the analysis but I think Robert mentioned

earlier that that we do control for um at one point in the models we controlled for the quality of schools in the county so that's a that's more of an overall measure it's not the black the black students are attending this quality level of schools and white students are attending this this level of quality um yeah we didn't look at that specifically but just wanted to know whether or not this sort of public private schools segregation persisted even in places where the quality of public schools was overall very good and and we found that to be the case that the the quality of public schools didn't matter for the extent of racial separation between public and private schools and they it also didn't matter whether or not private school quality was greater than public school quality or the to the extent that that was true because that's not always the case public and private schools in some counties were often very similar

in measurable ways. I guess the next question is how will this information if at all assist I'm only dunking in in the analysis of our educational system in this country. Robert? Well we hope to show that um we hope to show policy makers that the history matters and we can't really understand how to um kind of institute proper policy interventions to curb the type of school segregation and to improve the educational outcomes of a black students unless we understand how history is is shaping these outcomes like history informs um how and why these things are the way they are and if we refuse to look historically um then we miss a part of the story and if we're missing part of the story then we can't completely fix the problem. When I'll just say they're done at at the end of the day how does this information and you some of our ticklake of affect our societal

structure that facilitate white disinvestment in our public school system obviously everyone needs to buy into to the same thing I was soon. Um I think I mean it's it's it is kind of a it's kind of a big statement we that we're trying to make and saying that the history matters and what is that what is that actually going to change. Some of what we've been thinking about is is about how this is if we listen to the discourse when we're talking about school segregation or just schools in general I think it's helpful to recognize that some of that discourse is coming from is coming from a historical foundation so that we can can use that information when we're having these conversations and say and really call each other out to say well where is that idea coming from? Why is it that you think that that's the way that this should be done um and and are there other ways that we can think about this that that could be more productive? And and I think also

just to recognize that that if this is something that's really influencing school segregation in the United States then this goes pretty deep. It's it's something that's infused into into your day-to-day life and then that's that's going to be sort of a sticky and personal issue and so that this is these are going to be some tough conversations and I think that we that we know that but that we just need to get prepared for that and and that we'll have to really stand by any policy decisions that we make because short-term short-term things are not really where this is going to if that's not where this is at we that's not going to fix very much for us. Looking down the road hopefully what type of discussion do you want educators and I guess parents and and and civically just to to look at? Like as I was just saying we want people to understand how deep the roots of school segregation particularly

on this type of dual school system that's developed in the American South Goals that is not there's not something you can fix with a band-aid that of the band-aid policy solution it's not something that that's recent it's not a recent development like this goes down it goes back to the very beginnings of the establishment of the universal education system in the American South in the late 19th century so it's not one people to have like these deep historical discussions about about the foundations of these processes and try to develop solutions with their knowledge in mind. Robert L. Reese a PhD candidate at Duke University and Heather O'Connor a postdoctoral fellow at Rice University's Kindle Institute for Urban Research. If you have questions comments or suggestions ask your future in Black America programs email us at jhanson at kut.org. Also let us know what radio station you heard us over.

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