Youth At The Center | #10YearsLater: A Data Retrospective
About #10YearsLater: A Data Retrospective
Forward Through Ferguson works to be a catalyst for lasting positive change in the St. Louis region. Since the sunset of the Ferguson Commission on December 31st, 2015, Forward Through Ferguson has served as the region’s transition and action team keeping the report, its 189 calls to action and a St. Louis vision for Racial Equity from gathering dust. Support our Racial Equity work.
Ten years since the Ferguson uprising, we are releasing #10YearsLater: A Data Retrospective to share our original data and research about what has and has not changed across the signature priority areas identified by the Ferguson Commission — Youth at the Center, Opportunity to Thrive, Justice for All, and Racial Equity. We invite you to read and share this retrospective, celebrate progress made by movements for equity, and deepen communal commitments to being #Unflinching in transforming the St. Louis region and the nation towards Racial Equity. This work matters and together, we will win.
#FergusonIsEverywhere #MikeBrownForever
Acknowledgements
Authors: Madhav Narayan, MPH, Jia Lian Yang, MSW/MDiv
Editors: Faybra Jabulani, Nichole Murphy, MSW
Formatting: Jia Lian Yang, MSW/MDiv, Janaé Robinson
Navigation
Introduction | Youth At The Center | Justice For All | Opportunity To Thrive
Youth at the Center
Youth At The Center means just that–putting our youth, their well-being, and the support we provide them at the center of the movement towards Racial Equity and anti-racist systems change. The Ferguson Commission highlighted several calls to action under the Youth At The Center priority area. These calls to action were designed to take a holistic approach to child well-being and to support the whole child. The last 10 years have yielded much work in these spaces to dismantle harmful systems that most impact Black and brown youth. They have also seen a great deal of pushback, including culture wars and politicized attacks against critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
We have witnessed the deeply harmful effects of the “school-to-prison-pipeline,” where Black and brown children are forced out of schools and educational environments at a higher rate than their white peers. This exclusion follows them, pushing them into options which are more likely to lead them to negative interactions with the justice system. In 2016, Forward Through Ferguson worked with several organizations such as Metropolitan Congregations United, West County Community Action Network (WE CAN), and Ready by 21 to host the Keep Kids in Class assembly which highlighted these disparities and called on our region’s school districts to eliminate out-of-school suspension (OSS) for our youngest students.
Additionally, FTF advocated for trauma-informed care and restorative justice practices rather than punitive actions. At the time, four school districts (Maplewood-Richmond Heights, Ladue, Normandy, and SLPS) agreed to do so, with more following along later. The assembly brought visibility to disparities in school discipline by race and laid the foundation for the creation of the “Keep Kids in Class” (KKIC) coalition. The coalition included members of Forward Through Ferguson, the ACLU of Missouri, American Friends Service Committee, A Red Circle, Metropolitan Congregations United, Ready by 21 St. Louis, WE CAN, and We Stories. The coalition continued the work of raising awareness around the prevalence and extent of discipline disparities through its sunset in 2021.
Falling Through The Cracks
In 2019, Forward Through Ferguson released “Falling Through the Cracks: Disparities in Out-of-School Suspension in St. Louis at the Intersection of Race, Disability, and Gender” with the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis and WE CAN.
Utilizing 2015–16 data reported to the Office of Civil Rights, the report analyzed discipline data from our regions’ school districts at the intersection of race, disability status, and gender. The findings from the report were horrifying. Data disaggregated by gender (assigned at birth), race, and disability showed that males were 2 times more likely to receive OSS than females, Black students were 6 times more likely to receive OSS than their white peers, and students with disabilities were 2.4 times more likely to receive OSS than students without disabilities.
However, when the variables were looked at altogether and comparisons were made against white females without disabilities (the population with the lowest incidence of OSS), the data showed much higher risk of OSS for all Black students.
Although the heightened risk of OSS for Black students across school districts is already troubling, some individual school districts had an even higher risk of OSS among students of color and students with disabilities.
For example, in the 2015–16 school year, Black boys with a disability in the Orchard Farm school district were 74.4 times more likely to be given OSS than white girls without a disability.
The 2017–18 OCR data showed a reduction in OSS risk in all categories, but the values were still high.
Data was collected for 2020–21, but it doesn’t accurately represent the state of school discipline due to the heightened use of virtual learning during the beginning and peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, new educational disparities emerged during this time.
Still Compromising
In 2020, Forward Through Ferguson released a series of articles titled “Still Compromising- The Disparate Impact of COVID-19 in St. Louis.”
One episode in the series titled “The Virtual Learning Apartheid & COVID-19 — Who’s Left Behind?” shared data around internet access. The data showed that Black residents in St. Louis City and St. Louis County were 3.5 times more likely to have no internet connection as compared to their white peers. A majority of residents without internet were found north of Delmar–adding another layer to the Delmar Divide.
There were disparities even between residents with internet access.
Data showed that in 10 majority Black census tracts in our region, the majority of households with internet access had connection speeds below 200 Kbps. This speed was the minimum required to be considered “broadband” internet in 1996. The minimum speed today is 25 Mbps, which is 125 times faster.
This access gap posed a significant challenge for our region’s Black and brown students, the impact of which is still being felt to this day. Additionally, while suspensions and other disciplinary measures were severely reduced due to the use of virtual learning, they were not eliminated altogether. Children and their families shared that they were kicked out of virtual class sessions for being “disruptive.” There were no standard protocols for these disciplinary decisions or data collection about these practices. We trust the lived experiences of St. Louis students and their families, and we can make an educated guess that punishment was disproportionately applied to Black and brown students, but we don’t have the quantitative data to determine the true extent of the impact.
Still Separate, Still Unequal
FTF followed up with a youth at the center accountability tool titled “Still Separate, Still Unequal” in September 2020. The report provided data in four areas that impact education access in our region: funding, property taxes, segregation, and education environment.
Below are the top-line findings in each area. These factors were further expounded on in 2021 in the “Barriers and Blessings” series.
Funding
On average, majority white school districts received more funding than majority Black school districts.
- On average, majority Black school districts receive most of their funding from state sources (31% vs 14%) while majority white school districts received most of their funding from local sources (82% vs 58%).
Root causes of funding inequities
- Missouri doesn’t provide much state funding.
- Missouri’s school funding system (The Foundation Formula) is fundamentally inequitable.
- State funding is not consistent or equitable largely due to resistance to public education by elected leaders, and (as of 2020) The Foundation Formula has only been fully funded three times.
Property taxes
- School district funding is dependent on property values of surrounding neighborhoods, which indicates that The Foundation Formula fails to close gaps in local funding and contributes to educational inequities.
- Median assessed value of homes in majority white districts is much higher than in majority Black districts ($181,899/student vs. $97,751/student).
- Majority Black districts tend to have higher tax levy ceilings to make up the difference, which means that residents (who tend to have about half the median income of majority white district residents) voted to tax themselves more.
- However, the increased tax burden on Black residents is still a fraction of the local funding raised by lower tax rates on higher property values in majority white districts.
Segregation
- St. Louis schools have largely become more segregated over the years.
- As the VICC desegregation program waned, schools reverted and became re-segregated.
- In 2019, the tri-county (St. Louis City, County, and St. Charles County) public school district dissimilarity index score was 0.71, meaning 71% of Black or white students would need to move districts for schools to reflect the underlying population.
- In 1968, soon after Brown v. Board of Education ruled segregated schools unconstitutional, but before most districts had moved to integrate, the dissimilarity index nationwide was about 0.80.
- Due to de facto segregation, 78% of public school students attended a racially concentrated school district in 2019.
Education environment
- In three of four measures we examined, majority Black districts were more heavily staffed than majority white districts.
- On average, teachers in majority Black districts are paid 10% less while administrators are paid 13% less.
- In contrast, the highest paid teachers in Clayton make $78,723 on average–61% or $30,000 more than the average salary of a teacher in St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS, the largest educator of Black children in the region).
- Majority Black districts are more likely to be staffed by younger and more inexperienced teachers, and offer fewer rigorous course options.
- Majority white districts offer 3x as many AP courses as majority Black districts.
Educational inequities in practice
- 43% of majority Black districts don’t offer calculus, whereas not a single majority white district fails to offer this course.
- Over one in four Black students in our region attend a school district that either doesn’t offer Calculus or any AP courses whereas less than 1% of white students attend such a district.
Educational Equity Champions
Our community partners have advanced educational equity in areas beyond education access and school discipline. WEPOWER has advocated for educational equity through thought leadership, power building, and resourcing. WEPOWER released The Reimagined + Redesigned Early Childhood Education Playbook 2018 to share systems, strategies, and solutions to increase and sustain resources for early childhood education. In 2022, they worked to secure over $5 million in ARPA funds for teacher wages and retention, as well as child care to mitigate the devastating effects of COVID-19 on educational equity. Currently, they are developing Early Childhood Power Building Hubs to strengthen advocacy skills among local leaders who will then champion the need for millions of dollars in sustainable public funding for early childhood education.
We at Forward Through Ferguson were thrilled to support many grassroots educational equity-focused organizations as the project managers for the Racial Healing + Justice Fund and facilitators for conversations among members of the Community Governance Board. A Red Circle works to address food scarcity and insecurity by advocating for food justice. EyeSeeMe, The Noir Bookshop, and St. Louis Black Authors of Children’s Literature work to provide Black children access to literature that accurately and respectfully mirrors themselves, their families, and their cultures.
Other organizations that support our region’s youth include Dream Builders 4 Equity, 4theVille, The Leadership School, Unleashing Potential, Creative Reaction Lab, Queen Camp, Inc., Urban Sprouts, Youth Friendly Learning STL, YourWords STL, Brownprenuers, Black Girls Do STEM, Gentlemen Of Vision, and Ujima. Wonderfully, this is not a complete list. We are grateful that so many are doing work to help our region’s children, and we hope to witness more progress towards education equity, elimination of discipline disparities, and implementation of holistic care.
Sources
- Keep Kids in Class Website (no longer active): https://keepkidsdev.wpenginepowered.com/
- Falling Through The Cracks: https://forwardthroughferguson.org/falling-through-the-cracks/
- Office of Civil Rights School Discipline Data: https://civilrightsdata.ed.gov/data
- Still Compromising- The Disparate Impact of COVID-19 in St. Louis: https://forwardthroughferguson.org/stillcompromising/
- Still Separate, Still Unequal: https://stillunequal.org/
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Introduction | Youth At The Center | Justice For All | Opportunity To Thrive
