Slavery, Racism and Education: South Carolina
South Carolina
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The ruling intellect of [South Carolina] has now, as it originally had, more than that of any other American community, a profound conviction, that God created men to live in distinct classes or castes, one beneath another, one subject to another. Frederick Law Olmsted.[i]
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South Carolina is on the Atlantic seaboard, between North Carolina and Georgia. It was colonized from England in the mid-seventeenth century with an early fundamental law that was essentially feudal. Although that law did not remain in effect for long, the social structure it implies lingered.? The colonizers divided the land along the coast (the “Lowcountry”) into large plantations worked by enslaved Africans.[ii]? White immigrants from the north later settled the “Upcountry” in the western part of the state. The plantation system was designed from the beginning to be operated with slave labor, on the model of that in Barbados, “the first “black slave society” – the most systemically violent, brutal and racially inhumane society of modernity.”[iii]? Article 110 of the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina of March 1, 1669, stated: “Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves.”[iv] This remained the case for close to two hundred years.
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Africans and their descendants soon became the majority in South Carolina, to such an extent in the plantations lands along the coast that observers commented that “Carolina looks more like a Negro country than a country settled by white people.” The demographic disproportion led to “slave concubinage . . .? instituted in open practice, in imitation of English customs in the West Indies.” Children borne by enslaved concubines were assigned to the mother’s status, so that they were the property, not the heirs, of their White fathers: another form of livestock to be worked or sold.[v]
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Among its agricultural products, rice is the most closely identified with South Carolina’s history.? “Beginning in the eighteenth century the colony increasingly embraced rice as a staple . . .
The English colonists benefited from the knowledge of their African bondsmen, many of whom came from rice-growing regions in Africa and knew more about the cultivation of the crop than did Englishmen. Indeed, when buying slaves, Carolinians adopted a preference for people from the rice-producing Senegambia region, and this preference lasted through most of the colonial period.[vi]
Rice was at first cultivated in dry fields, then “At the end of the eighteenth century rice cultivation was adapted to the tide flow, and rice fields were constructed out of low-lying regions fronting rivers.
For slaves, this meant that the workload was increased. These fields required the building of massive dikes, levees, and canals by hand with picks and shovels, working in the mud with snakes, alligators, and other vermin. Slaves worked much harder under this new system, especially when new plantations were being formed . . . Moreover, these constructions had to be maintained. All of these things meant that the external attributes of slavery in South Carolina were harsh.[vii]?
The swamps bred mosquitoes carrying malaria and yellow fever, diseases so prevalent and deadly that the White plantation owners were careful never to spend a night on their lands in the summers. The owners of the plantations were practitioners of, growing rich from, kidnapping, human trafficking, false imprisonment, assault, murder, sexual slavery. They did these things—boasted of them—with impunity, as they controlled the state government and the courts. ?
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Kidnapped Africans were imported to South Carolina from specific areas: Angola and the Senegal-Gambia area.? It followed, then, that the Lowcountry was, in effect, an African colony where newly enslaved people could find others who spoke their language and shared their culture.[viii]? A failed rebellion by enslaved Africans, rumored to be a group of former warriors from Angolo, was followed in 1740 by a “slave law, which made it illegal for more than seven adult male slaves to travel together except in the company of a white person.
The 1740 code was the basis for all slave laws subsequently passed in the colonial and antebellum eras . . . Burglary, arson, and running away, inter alia, were all capital offenses punishable by death. Slaves were not to be away from a plantation between sunset and sunrise and at no time without the permission of the master or they could be taken up and whipped.[ix]
The notoriously harsh form of South Carolina slavery[1] was such that when it appeared likely to be imposed on the society in northeast Florida, then operating under the less severe Spanish system, the paternalistic plantation owner Zephaniah Kingsley, for example, migrated, with his family and slaves to Haiti, where he eventually freed the latter. A visitor from Connecticut, Eli Whitney, in 1793 improved the cotton gin, which led to the rapid extension of cotton production into upland South Carolina and elsewhere. “In 1790 these upland counties operated essentially in a free-labor society, fifteen thousand slaves amounting to no more than a fifth of the population.”[x]?
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The government of South Carolina—the planters and their supporters—were reluctant adherents to the Union at the time of the establishment of the United States, cling to the doctrine of “nullification,” claiming the authority of the state over that of the federal government, and when they perceived a threat to slavery in the election of Abraham Lincoln, seceded and “the war came,” as Lincoln said in his second inaugural address: “Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
"One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves not distributed generally over the union but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war.”?
The war came to South Carolina in earnest with Sherman’s army.? “The economic loss which came through war was great, but not nearly as influential as the psychological change, the change in habit and thought.? Imagine the 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment, heading the Union troops which entered Charleston, and singing 'John Brown's Body.'"[xi] For a few years after Emancipation and the end of the Civil War, South Carolina had a democratic (not Democratic) government, universal male suffrage and the beginnings of many institutions typical of the rest of the country. That all changed with the collapse of Reconstruction.
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The Black Codes, enacted in 1865, before Reconstruction, ?“created many legal impediments to the progress of the freedmen . . . The intent of the Black Codes, then, was the retention of white supremacy but not the legal segregation of the races.” [xii] Legal segregation was imposed in South Carolina beginning in 1879, when a law was passed prohibiting inter-racial marriage. “Residential segregation was accomplished by a complex network of city ordinances, banking practices, and social agreements.
In the mills black and white workers by law worked in different rooms with different entrances and toilets . . . Blacks sat in the balconies of movie theaters, drank from separate water fountains, waited for trains in separate waiting rooms, and sat in the backs of buses. Even when African Americans could use the same facility as whites– at a post office–they would wait until all whites had been served. African Americans had separate parks and swimming pools in Charleston, and the beaches at the Isle of Palms, Sullivan’s Island, and Folly Beach were off-limits. A separate school system for blacks was established in the constitution of 1895, [xiii]
As late as ‘1951 the General Assembly established an official legislative committee . . . ?to monitor and fight all efforts at desegregation and equal rights for blacks[xiv]
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“The ever-present threat of vigilante lynch mobs added a particularly devastating level of terror to the everyday lives of blacks[xv] . . .
On February 17, 1947, Willie Earle, a 24-year-old African American man, was being held in the Pickens County Jail in South Carolina?on charges of assaulting a white taxi cab driver. A mob of white men—mostly taxi cab drivers—seized Mr. Earle from the jail, took him to a deserted country road near Greenville, brutally beat him with guns?and knives, and then shot him to death.[xvi]
There were 156 lynchings in South Carolina between 1882 and 1947.?
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The majority of people in South Carolina were Africans and their descendants until the mid-twentieth century, but except for the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, when the state was occupied by the Union army, the government was in the hands of the White minority, and within that minority a small group of immensely wealthy men who controlled the plantations along the coast. “White inheritors of the wealth of criminal enrichment remain[ed] politically unrepentant and financially dominant.”[xvii]
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South Carolina now has a population of 5,282,634, of whom 62% (3,301,739) are White, non-Hispanic, 25% (1,313,290) Black, non-Hispanic, and 6.5% (343,783) Hispanic. The state ranks 45th in per capita income. The median household income of White, non-Hispanic, residents is $73,731; of Black residents, 60% of that:? $44,187 (far below the qualifying amount for the National School Lunch Program). The White, non-Hispanic, poverty rate is 9.5%; that of Black residents, more than twice as high: 24%.
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Education
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In 1712 “An Act for Founding and Erecting of a Free School in Charlestown” provided schools for the children of poor White residents. [xviii] There was a different provision for Black residents. A 1740 legal code forbade teaching writing to enslaved persons, “And whereas, the having of slaves taught to write, or suffering them to be employed in writing, may be attended with great inconveniences;
Be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all and every person and persons whatsoever, who shall hereinafter teach or cause any slave or slaves to be taught, to write, or shall use or employ any slave as a scribe in any manner of writing whatsoever, hereafter taught to write, every such person and persons, shall, for every such offense, forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds current money.[xix]
Although another law providing free schools for the children of poor White residents (“paupers”) was passed by the General Assembly in 1811, “The colony’s aristocratic English leaders’ argument against taxation and public welfare programs retarded the development of universal education for more than 150 years.” [xx] It was not until the Civil War that Black residents of South Carolina were provided with any educational opportunities. Teachers sponsored by northern philanthropic and missionary societies established schools for former slaves, supplementing those begun by the formerly enslaved people themselves. The Reconstruction constitution of 1868 made the legislature responsible for “a uniform system of public schools.” The schools were to be “open to all the children and the youths of the State, without regard to race and color.” However, those schools were segregated after Reconstruction. [xxi]? “In 1867, the Freedmen’s Bureau opened Howard School in Columbia . ?. .
It served children of all grades until 1916 when Booker T. Washington High opened for blacks. That was the only public high school for Columbia’s African Americans until 1948. Because African Americans had so few opportunities to get an education anywhere in the state, some families even moved to Columbia or boarded their children with Columbia families. [xxii]
Despite the establishment of public schools in South Carolina in the 1860s and 1870s, in 1880 “twenty-two percent of whites and more than seventy-eight percent of blacks in South Carolina were completely illiterate.”
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In 1895 the state adopted a new constitution. It stated: “Separate schools shall be provided for children of the white and colored races, and no child of either race shall ever be permitted to attend a school provided for children of the other race.” [xxiii] That was somewhat redundant, as “Before World War I, most African Americans in the state had no access to any high school . . .
In 1911, W.K. Tate, the state’s first elementary rural school supervisor, reported: The Negro schoolhouses are miserable beyond description … Most of the teachers are absolutely untrained and have been given certificates by the county board not because they have passed the examination, but because it is necessary to have some kind of a Negro teacher. Among the Negro rural schools I have visited, I have found only one in which the highest class has known the multiplication table.
In 1913-14, when the state expenditure for White schools was $14.94 per student, that for Black schools was $1.86. “In 1916 the average class size for whites was thirty-seven students, compared to seventy-two for African Americans.” [xxiv] “In 1920 South Carolina had the lowest expenditure per pupil in the nation . . .
Black schools— both urban and rural— suffered even greater hardships. Local school officials were not required to share tax money equally between the black and white systems. The belief that black schools deserved no more than a meager portion of the school dollar quickly became official state policy— accepted by the most enlightened [sic]white educators. At the turn of the century, the theory that “to educate a Negro is to spoil a laborer” prevailed among the white leadership.[xxv]
In 1948 “There were [still] extreme discrepancies between spending on white students and that on black students.
In Clarendon County, for example, per-pupil expenditure during 1949–1950 was $179 per white child and only $43 per black child . . . Average teacher salaries for whites was $2,057; for blacks $1,414 . . . The state was spending $2.4 million on transportation for whites and $184,000 on blacks.”[xxvi]
?In reaction to the 1954 Supreme Court Brown desegregation decision, “In 1955 the General Assembly repealed the compulsory school attendance law, allowing white parents to keep their children out of integrated schools. Private schools only for white children sprang up in many communities. [xxvii]
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After Brown, “Nine years of court cases followed before eleven black children in Charleston became the first to attend formerly all-white schools.” [xxviii] ?This allowed the Charleston school district to claim to be “desegregated” in 1963. The next year fifteen other districts “desegregated” after federal orders to do so. “However, [that type of] desegregation really meant that only a few Black students attended previously all-white schools . . . Many South Carolina school districts decided to close Black schools to achieve integration. School districts regularly opted to close the Black high school and bus those students to previously all-white high schools.”[xxix] The 1964, the Civil Rights Act “provided for cutoff of federal funds to school districts where discrimination was evident.
A month later, more than a third of the state’s school districts had been ordered to produce desegregation plans by September or lose federal funds. That fall, the race barriers went down in Columbia’s city schools and those of fourteen other school districts. The number of blacks in white schools was small that first year, but the threat of full integration led to the quick establishment of a network of segregated private schools.[xxx]
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Education Today
The South Carolina public schools do not to this day provide an adequate education for most Black students nor for most White students from lower income families.
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The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that in 2022, 63% of all eighth grade students had reading achievement levels at or above NAEP’s “Basic,” that is, grade-level.? This is the lowest level since 1998 (the earliest available data). ?Just over half of lower income students in grade eight, those eligible for the National School Lunch Program reached the Basic level or above in reading, while 77% of those from higher income families were taught to read well enough to reach the Basic level or above. The difference was particularly noticeable at the higher achievement levels, at which the gap was 20% percentage points for those scoring “Proficient” and just one percent of the lower income group had achieved the “Advanced” level, while 5% of students from higher income families had been taught that well. Most, 54%, of South Carolina students in eighth grade who reported a parental education level of only high school graduation were not taught to read to the Basic level.? In contrast, 72% of students who reported a parental education level of college graduation were taught to read to the Basic level or above.?
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Combining family income and parental education levels, a combination which may stand for socio-economic class, only 45% of students from lower income families whose parental educational attainment was just high school graduation are taught to read to the Basic level or above in South Carolina and just 58% of students from lower income families whose parental educational attainment was at least a Bachelor’s degree were taught to read to the Basic level or above.? On the other hand, 84% of students from higher income families who reported a parental educational attainment of at least a Bachelor’s degree were taught to read to the Basic level or above. It appears that by these measures, income is more influential in South Carolina than family educational level.
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The variation in educational achievement for White students between city and rural schools is also considerable, reflecting centuries of differential development.? The percentage of White eighth grade students scored by NAEP in 2022 as reading to the Basic level or above was 81% in city schools, 69% in rural schools.? The difference for Black students was minimal: 44% in city schools, 42% in rural schools—most Black student were not taught to read to grade level anywhere in the state.
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The 2023 South Carolina College-and Career-Ready Assessments found that far less than half, just 36%, of Black or African American students in eighth grade met or exceeded expectations, compared to nearly twice that percentage, 66%, of White students.[xxxi] NAEP 2022 found that fewer than half, 48%, of Black students in eighth grade were taught to read to the Basic level or above, compared to three-quarters, 75%, of White students.[2] This is another stark indication of racial inequities in the state. Only 42% of Black students in eighth grade from lower income families were taught to read to the Basic level as compared to 67% of White students from lower income families; a 25 percentage point gap.? Seventy percent of the comparatively few Black students from higher income families and 81% of White students from higher income families were taught to read to the Basic level or above, a rather narrow gap, indicating, once more, the importance of family income for educational achievement in South Carolina, even within racial groups.
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Less than a third, 31%, of Black eighth grade students whose reported parental educational attainment was just a high school diploma were taught to read to at least the Basic level, as were nearly twice that proportion, 60%, of White students in that group.? Among students whose parental educational attainment was at least a Bachelor’s degree, 83% of White eighth grade students were taught to read to the Basic level or above, as were just 55% of the Black students of college-educated parents. More White students with parents whose educational attainment was just a high school diploma were taught to the Basic level or above in eighth grade reading than Black students with college-educated parents.
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Finally, combining family income and parental education attainment—class—with race, NAEP found for eighth grade reading achievement in South Carolina’s schools in 2022, only a remarkable 28% of Black students from lower income households whose parental educational attainment was just a high school diploma were taught to the Basic level or above, as were 62% of White students in that group, a 34 percentage point gap.? For students with a parental education attainment of at least college graduation, 48%, not only half, of Black students from lower income families and 76% of White students from that group were taught to read to the Basic level or above.? Among students from higher income families, 86% of White students whose parental educational attainment was a Bachelor’s degree or higher were taught to read to the Basic level or above, as were 72% of Black students in that group.
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The South Carolina State Department of Education reported high school graduation rates of 80% for African American students and 87% for “Caucasian” students.[xxxii] This in spite of the fact that only half, 51%, of those Black students who were in eighth grade in 2019 were taught to read to the Basic level or above (compared to 80%, of White students). How well prepared were those high school graduates? The effects of centuries of slavery and discrimination are still apparent in South Carolina. Adult education attainment to a Bachelor’s degree or higher in South Carolina is 38% for White, non-Hispanic, residents and half that, 19%, for Black residents.[xxxiii] As recent high school graduation rates are higher than those earned by today’s adults when they were in school, it would be a generous estimate that one-quarter of Black high school graduates have gone on to obtain college degrees, compared to approximately half of White high school graduates. To increase the number of Black families with college-educated parents in South Carolina (which would also increase their household income), it would be at least necessary to improve the teaching of reading for Black students, especially Black students from lower income families.
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Appendix
Order by the Commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi
IN THE?FIELD, SAVANNAH, GA., January 16th, 1865.
领英推荐
SPECIAL?FIELD?ORDERS, No. 15.
I. The islands from Charleston, south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns river, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the negroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States.
II. At Beaufort, Hilton Head, Savannah, Fernandina, St. Augustine and Jacksonville, the blacks may remain in their chosen or accustomed vocations–but on the islands, and in the settlements hereafter to be established, no white person whatever, unless military officers and soldiers detailed for duty, will be permitted to reside; and the sole and exclusive management of affairs will be left to the freed people themselves, subject only to the United States military authority and the acts of Congress.??By the laws of war, and orders of the President of the United States, the negro is free and must be dealt with as such.??He cannot be subjected to conscription or forced military service, save by the written orders of the highest military authority of the Department, under such regulations as the President or Congress may prescribe.??Domestic servants, blacksmiths, carpenters and other mechanics, will be free to select their own work and residence, but the young and able-bodied negroes must be encouraged to enlist as soldiers in the service of the United States, to contribute their share towards maintaining their own freedom, and securing their rights as citizens of the United States.
Negroes so enlisted will be organized into companies, battalions and regiments, under the orders of the United States military authorities, and will be paid, fed and clothed according to law.??The bounties paid on enlistment may, with the consent of the recruit, go to assist his family and settlement in procuring agricultural implements, seed, tools, boots, clothing, and other articles necessary for their livelihood.
III. Whenever three respectable negroes, heads of families, shall desire to settle on land, and shall have selected for that purpose an island or a locality clearly defined, within the limits above designated, the Inspector of Settlements and Plantations will himself, or by such subordinate officer as he may appoint, give them a license to settle such island or district, and afford them such assistance as he can to enable them to establish a peaceable agricultural settlement.??The three parties named will subdivide the land, under the supervision of the Inspector, among themselves and such others as may choose to settle near them, so that each family shall have a plot of not more than (40) forty acres of tillable ground, and when it borders on some water channel, with not more than 800 feet water front, in the possession of which land the military authorities will afford them protection, until such time as they can protect themselves, or until Congress shall regulate their title.??The Quartermaster may, on the requisition of the Inspector of Settlements and Plantations, place at the disposal of the Inspector, one or more of the captured steamers, to ply between the settlements and one or more of the commercial points heretofore named in orders, to afford the settlers the opportunity to supply their necessary wants, and to sell the products of their land and labor.
IV. Whenever a negro has enlisted in the military service of the United States, he may locate his family in any one of the settlements at pleasure, and acquire a homestead, and all other rights and privileges of a settler, as though present in person.??In like manner, negroes may settle their families and engage on board the gunboats, or in fishing, or in the navigation of the inland waters, without losing any claim to land or other advantages derived from this system.??But no one, unless an actual settler as above defined, or unless absent on Government service, will be entitled to claim any right to land or property in any settlement by virtue of these orders.
V. In order to carry out this system of settlement, a general officer will be detailed as Inspector of Settlements and Plantations, whose duty it shall be to visit the settlements, to regulate their police and general management, and who will furnish personally to each head of a family, subject to the approval of the President of the United States, a possessory title in writing, giving as near as possible the description of boundaries; and who shall adjust all claims or conflicts that may arise under the same, subject to the like approval, treating such titles altogether as possessory.??The same general officer will also be charged with the enlistment and organization of the negro recruits, and protecting their interests while absent from their settlements; and will be governed by the rules and regulations prescribed by the War Department for such purposes.
VI. Brigadier General R. SAXTON?is hereby appointed Inspector of Settlements and Plantations, and will at once enter on the performance of his duties.??No change is intended or desired in the settlement now on Beaufort [Port Royal] Island, nor will any rights to property heretofore acquired be affected thereby.
BY ORDER OF?MAJOR?GENERAL?W. T. SHERMAN:
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Charleston?
Charleston has a population of 153,743, 72% (111,177) of whom are White, non-Hispanic; 14% (21,883) Black, non-Hispanic.? The median household income of White, non-Hispanic, residents is $96,018 and less than half that, $44,591 for Black residents. The poverty rate for White, non-Hispanic, residents is 8.5%, that for Black, non-Hispanic, residents is 15%.[xxxiv]
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The first English settlement in South Carolina at what is now Charleston was in 1670. The English colonists were soon joined by other Europeans—German, Dutch and French—and many African slaves, so that the latter, and their descendants, formed the majority of residents until the twentieth-century.? Charleston was from the eighteenth century a major export center, especially of agricultural products, and a major import and trans-shipping port for enslaved people, imported either directly from Africa or from Barbados and the Caribbean and exported, either marched, chained, to Georgia and Alabama, or sent again into the holds of ships, this time around the Florida peninsula to the slave markets of New Orleans.[xxxv]
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Charleston, and South Carolina in general, practiced a particularly brutal form of slavery, with no legal limits to the abuse of their prisoners by their slavers.? Frederick Law Olmsted, writing in 1853 found that “As far as the slaves are concerned, there has been no essential political progress at all . . .
And even as late as 1808, two slaves were publicly and judicially burned alive, over a slow fire, in the city of Charleston. In 1816 a grand jury declared in their official presentment, that instances of negro homicide were common, and that the murderers were allowed to continue in the full exercise of their powers as masters and mistresses.[xxxvi]
The plantations, worked with slave labor, and the trade in enslaved people, made some White men in Charleston extraordinarily wealthy, so that before the Civil War eight of the ten wealthiest men in the United States lived in South Carolina.
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Education
In 2018, at the invitation of the Charleston County School District, Clemson University conducted an analysis of the “intractable challenges” the district faced, which included: “historical racial issues that have not been adequately addressed . . . the persistent low achievement for children of color and poverty . . . cycles of generational poverty . . . rapid expansion of school choice and charters leading to uneven educational opportunities; and lingering distrust.”
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The final report summary from Clemson stated that:? “The Charleston County School District fails nearly half of its students.
Those students who are already at or above grade level are well-served by the district. Those students who are not, are not. In effect, the district is comprised of two parallel school systems: one successful and predominately wealthy and White; the other rife with failure, mainly poor, with mostly Hispanic and African American students.”
The report went on to observe: “Significantly less than half of all 5th and 8th grade students met or exceeded expectations (standards) for the 2017 SC Ready ELA (averaging 41%) and Math (averaging 36%) tests.
In other words, more than half of the students moving up to middle and high schools are not prepared. For African American students, the average percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations for ELA and math were 19% and 16% respectively . . . On average, only 20% of students in the Charleston County School District scored “Ready” on all sections of the ACT tests. The ACT is given to students in their third year of high school and measures readiness for college. The average percentage for White students was 47% . . . and an appalling 7% for African American students. Enrollment in schools not offering Gifted and Talented classes is predominantly African American. This is also true for schools not offering classes in physics and calculus. Thus, the majority of students who ARE taking these classes so critical for college are White . . . Academic achievement closely tracks the socio-economic status of the school’s area or of its students . . . your race closely predicts your educational future. Stark racial disparities are evident not only in academic achievement, but in statistics on discipline and special education.[xxxvii]
The Clemson report findings appear to be no less the case five years later.
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The state reported that the 2023 SC Ready grade 8 English Language Arts percentage of Black students in the district meeting or exceeding expectations was far under half, 32%, while those of White students meeting or exceeding expectations was 81.5%.[3][xxxviii]? And yet, the graduation rate for Black students in 2022-2023 was 81%. For White students (“Caucasian”) it was 93.5%.[xxxix]? Although the graduation rate for White students was 12 percentage points higher than that of White students meeting or exceeding expectations in middle school, the graduation rate for Black students was four times that meeting or exceeding expectations in middle school: 49 percentage points. Educational attainment to a Bachelor’s degree or higher is accomplished by 68% of the White, non-Hispanic, population, and a third of that, 22% of the Black, non-Hispanic, adult residents. Charleston county’s White adult educational attainment is approximately 14 percentage points lower than that of those meeting or exceeding expectations in middle school and 25.5 percentage points lower than the White high school graduation rate, Black adult educational attainment is approximately 10 percentage points lower than that of those meeting or exceeding expectations in middle school and 59 percentage points than the Black high school graduation rate.
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It appears that the Charleston County schools do not prepare the overwhelming majority of Black high school graduates for college, nor for the higher paying careers to which a college diploma leads. In a state where student achievement is strongly associated with family income, this perpetuates a vicious circle of poverty and inferior educational outcomes.
[1] Hannah Arendt commented in another context that “This fright of something like oneself that still under no circumstances out to be like oneself remained at the basis of slavery and became the basis for a race society.” Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Orlando: A Harvest Book, Harcourt, Inc. 1976, p. 192.
[2] The Massachusetts benchmark percentages at or above Basic are White, 83%, and Black, 63%.
[3] “The South Carolina College-and?Career-Ready?Assessments (SC READY) are statewide assessments in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics that will meet all of the requirements of Acts 155 and 200, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) , the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA), and the Assessments Peer Review guidance.” https://ed.sc.gov/data/test-scores/state-assessments/sc-ready/?
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[i] Olmsted, Frederick Law.? A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States; With Remarks on Their Economy. Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH, 2001.https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/olmsted/olmsted.html
[ii] Bartels, Virginia B. (ed.) “The History of South Carolina Schools,” Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement. https://www.teachercadets.com/uploads/1/7/6/8/17684955/history_of_south_carolina_schools.pdf
[iii] Beckles, Sir Hilary. “On Barbados, the First Black Slave Society,” Black Perspectives, April 8, 2017. https://www.aaihs.org/on-barbados-the-first-black-slave-society/.?
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[viii] See: Weir, Robert M. Colonial South Carolina, A History. Millwood, New York: KTO Press, 1983, p. 173ff.
[ix] Littlefield, Daniel C. “Slaveey” South Carolina encyclopedia, 2022. https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/slavery
[xi] Du Bois, W. E. B.? Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880.? New York: The Free Press, 1998, p.384.
[xii] Sellers, Cleveland L., Jr.? “Segregation,” University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies, 2022. https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/segregation/
[xiii] Sellers, Cleveland L., Jr.? “Segregation,” University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies, 2022. https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/segregation/
[xiv] Sellers, Cleveland L., Jr.? “Segregation,” University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies, 2022. https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/segregation/
[xv] Sellers, Cleveland L., Jr.? “Segregation,” University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies, 2022. https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/segregation/
[xvi] A History of Racial Injustice. “White Mob Lychees Willie Earle Near Greenville, South Carolina,” https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/feb/17
[xvii] Beckles, Sir Hilary. “On Barbados, the First Black Slave Society,” Black Perspectives, April 8, 2017. https://www.aaihs.org/on-barbados-the-first-black-slave-society/
[xviii] Switzer, Deborah M. and Robert P. Green, Jr. “Education,” South Carolina Encyclopedia. University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies, 2022. https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/education/
[xix] An Act for the Better Ordering and Governing Negroes and Other Slaves in the Province. https://digital.scetv.org/teachingAmerhistory/pdfs/Transciptionof1740SlaveCodes.pdf
[xx]Bartels, Virginia B. (Ed.) The History of South Carolina Schools (CERRA-SC)? https://www.teachercadets.com/uploads/1/7/6/8/17684955/history_of_south_carolina_schools.pdf
[xxi] An Act for the Better Ordering and Governing Negroes and Other Slaves in the Province. https://digital.scetv.org/teachingAmerhistory/pdfs/Transciptionof1740SlaveCodes.pdf
[xxii] Bartels, Virginia B. (Ed.) The History of South Carolina Schools (CERRA-SC) https://www.teachercadets.com/uploads/1/7/6/8/17684955/history_of_south_carolina_schools.pdf
[xxiii] Bartels, Virginia B. (Ed.) The History of South Carolina Schools (CERRA-SC) https://www.teachercadets.com/uploads/1/7/6/8/17684955/history_of_south_carolina_schools.pdf
[xxiv] Bartels, Virginia B. (Ed.) The History of South Carolina Schools (CERRA-SC) https://www.teachercadets.com/uploads/1/7/6/8/17684955/history_of_south_carolina_schools.pdf
[xxv] Bartels, Virginia B. (Ed.) The History of South Carolina Schools (CERRA-SC) https://www.teachercadets.com/uploads/1/7/6/8/17684955/history_of_south_carolina_schools.pdf
[xxvi] Bartels, Virginia B. (Ed.) The History of South Carolina Schools (CERRA-SC) https://www.teachercadets.com/uploads/1/7/6/8/17684955/history_of_south_carolina_schools.pdf
[xxvii] Sellers, Cleveland L., Jr.? “Segregation,” University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies, 2022. https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/segregation/
[xxviii] Bartels, Virginia B. (Ed.) The History of South Carolina Schools (CERRA-SC) https://www.teachercadets.com/uploads/1/7/6/8/17684955/history_of_south_carolina_schools.pdf
[xxx] Bartels, Virginia B. (Ed.) The History of South Carolina Schools (CERRA-SC) https://www.teachercadets.com/uploads/1/7/6/8/17684955/history_of_south_carolina_schools.pdf
[xxxiii] American Community Survey, 2022.
[xxxiv] American Community Survey, 2022.
[xxxv] Littlefield, Daniel C. “Slave Trade” South Carolina encyclopedia, 2022. https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/slave-trade/#:~:text=Eighteenth%2Dcentury%20South%20Carolina%20was,between%20the%20Chesapeake%20and%20Florida.
[xxxvi] Olmsted, Frederick Law. A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States; with Remarks on their Economy London: Sampson Low, Son, & Co, 1856, pp. 498-9..
[xxxvii] “How Much Do We Care?? A Comprehensive Look at Closing the Readiness Gap for the Children of Charleston County. Clemson University, 2017. https://www.ccsdschools.com/cms/lib/SC50000504/Centricity/Domain/105//DiversityStudy/CCSD%20FINAL%209-10-18.pdf
[xxxviii] Bartels, Virginia B. (Ed.) The History of South Carolina Schools (CERRA-SC) https://ed.sc.gov/data/test-scores/state-assessments/sc-ready/2023/district-scores-by-grade-level-and-demographic-category/?districtCode=1001&schoolCode=999
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