logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

NAACP Fights Black-Majority School Closings in Carolina Corridor of Shame

Martin Levine
April 17, 2018
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
US Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jensen Stidham.

April 12, 2018; Sumter Item

How do we assess the value and impact of a public school? Do we weigh it mainly by its educational effectiveness, as measured by its test scores? Do we measure it based on its cost per student? Do we consider its impact as a community asset? Or, is it just a pawn in larger political battle?

These questions become very relevant when school leaders are asked to choose which schools, if any, to close. A dispute over the closing of two rural South Carolina schools illustrates how complicated and politically fraught school closing decisions can become.

According to the Sumter Item, the Sumter School Board “voted in favor of Interim Superintendent Debbie Hamm’s proposal to close Mayewood Middle School and F.J. DeLaine Elementary School at the end of this school year and consolidate those students and teachers into nearby schools to create magnet schools with special programming.”

The rationale seemed quite straightforward, prompted by the district’s financial problems, including running a $6.2 million operating deficit in fiscal 2016. The selection of these two specific schools, according to the district’s administration, was done with a commitment to ensuring that “any changes would be educationally beneficial to children, continue educational services in the rural areas of the county and minimize transportation time to new schools. Other considerations included enhancing the image of Sumter School District to help with teacher recruitment, among other factors.” The school district estimates that closing the two schools will reduce costs for the district by $2.4 million. Still, the decision to close was controversial, passing narrowly on a 5-3 vote, with both board members whose districts included the closed schools voting against the motion, along with the school board chair.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

From the perspective of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), the story is even more complicated. In a letter to the Sumter School Board, the LDF, along with local nonprofit The Family Unit, “expressed concerns surrounding the rushed and non-transparent process that has surrounded the proposals to close schools attended by predominately Black students.”

The schools, according to the LDF, are “located in rural areas of Sumter County and are considered part of South Carolina’s notorious Corridor of Shame because of the State’s unconstitutional chronic underfunding of these schools.”

Each school’s student body is majority-Black and low-income. These schools also have a long history of educating Black students when de jure and de facto segregation sanctioned white-only schools…our understanding is that white flight, in part, contributes to today’s low enrollment and over-concentration of low-income Black students in these schools. Specifically, white students with access to private transportation chose to travel to urban areas of Sumter County to enroll in school. Residents also have attributed low-enrollment in these schools to inequitable school zoning and attendance lines; that is, decisions which do not assign students to these schools but other ones.

The LDF and The Family Unit also raised questions about a process that did not engage local input and a change in the makeup of the school board. They charged that local state legislators proposed legislation that effectively reduced the political power of the district’s Black residents, permitting a decision that would affect them directly. Overriding a gubernatorial veto, the legislature added two at-large members to the board and allowed local legislators to appoint them until the next regularly scheduled school board election. Prior to this change, the majority of the board had come from districts where Black voters were the majority. The newly appointed school board members proved to be the crucial votes in approving these school closures, a decision which reversed the prior Board’s previous rejection of this plan.

School closures have become issues of contention from coast to coast, and they are seldom easy. Inadequate school funding, the desire to foster educational choice and introduce charter schools, and demographic shifts are factors pushing public school authorities to attempt to “right-size” their districts. Sumter’s experience is not atypical; too often, the decisions to close schools reflect concerns and agendas that transcend school performance and economics. The LDF asserted that the Sumter decision did not properly weigh “the various negative impacts of the school closures on the students and the surrounding communities, [that] closing neighborhood schools will have a deleterious effect on the culture and vitality of the surrounding community; and predominately Black students will bear the burden.” It is a caution that other district leaders would benefit from considering.—Martin Levine

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Martin Levine

Martin Levine is a Principal at Levine Partners LLP, a consulting group focusing on organizational change and improvement, realigning service systems to allow them to be more responsive and effective. Before that, he served as the CEO of JCC Chicago, where he was responsible for the development of new facilities in response to the changing demography of the Metropolitan Jewish Community. In addition to his JCC responsibilities, Mr. Levine served as a consultant on organizational change and improvement to school districts and community organizations. Mr. Levine has published several articles on change and has presented at numerous conferences on this subject. A native of New York City, Mr. Levine is a graduate of City College of New York (BS in Biology) and Columbia University (MSW). He has trained with the Future Search and the Deming Institute.

More about: Nonprofit NewsPolicySouth Carolina

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

NPQ_Winter_2022Subscribe Today
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of Housing Insecurity for Black Women
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn
The Human Impact of the Global Refugee Crisis Must Be Understood—And Acted Upon
Anmol Irfan
Black Americans Need Reparations: The Fight for the CTC Highlights the Roadblocks
Jhumpa Bhattacharya and Trevor Smith
Edgar Cahn’s Second Act: Time Banking and the Return of Mutual Aid
Steve Dubb

Upcoming Webinars

Remaking the Economy

Black Food Sovereignty, Community Stories

Register Now
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of...
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.