Housing Policy & Public SchoolsA St. Louis Story

Image © 2014 The New Yorker

Why Housing Policy?“Residential segregation is the institutional apparatus that supports other racially discriminatory processes and binds them together into a coherent and uniquely effective system of racial subordination.”

-Massey & Denton, American Apartheid

Segregation & Stratification

“Residential segregation, once condoned by law and still upheld by custom, remains at the heart of racial inequality in the United States. This intense separation of living spaces produces...major consequences for [African Americans’] life chances by denying them access to employment, personal financing, home equity, a better educational system, and the social networks that make upward mobility possible.”

-Amy Stuart Wells & Robert Crain, Stepping Over the Color Line

Old Public School Funding Model

Local tax on homes & businesses + State-aid to lift poorer districts to a foundation for

“providing sufficient education”+ Local non-official contributions (PTA fundraisers, etc.) Public school budget

“[this] guarantees that every child has ‘an equal minimum’ but not that every child has the same...this, in turn, leads to the all-important question: ‘sufficient’ for what purpose? If the necessary outcome of the education of [low income kids] is...to enter into equal competition with [rich kids], then the foundation level has to be extremely high.”

-Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities

New Public School Funding Model

1900-2005 2005 - SB287: Student Needs-based Funding Formula

Revised Missouri formula: Weighted Average Daily Attendancex State Adequacy Target Funding Per Student x Dollar Value Modification (local cost of living) - Local Effort (property & business tax revenue) = State Aid

Funding Breakdown

● 41% → state aid formula

● 53% → tax revenue

● 6% → equity-related effort

2%2% 4%

Source: Baker, B & Corcoran, S. (2012). Center for American Progress

Funding Implications

● State budget deficit○ Districts underfunded avg. ~$500 per pupil (FY2010)○ Local non-official contributions = real impact of deficit

● Entire 20th century = property tax funding base○ High property value = big budget for schools○ Property value, manipulated along racial lines ○ Direct effects on school quality

Segregative Housing Policies

● Racial zoning○ 1916 - STL city votes to enforce mandatory racial segregation○ 1917 - SCOTUS rules to invalidate such laws○ 1919 - STL ordinance: Residential zones → Industrial

■ Lowers property value■ Restricted access to FHA mortgage insurance■ Increased cost of home insurance → increased rent

Segregative Housing Policies● Black public housing projects

○ 1934 National Industrial Recovery Act ■ Mandates new public housing can’t alter existing racial

composition of an area

○ 1940 STL city tears down integrated low-income areas■ Replaces with separate racial housing, “reallocated the

geographic density of like family units.”

○ 1955 Federal judge orders STL Housing Authority to change racist practices

Segregative Housing Policies● Govn’t subsidized white suburbs

○ 1944: GI Bill, FHA & VA gave subsidized mortgages & guaranteed mortgage insurance to vets

○ Black veterans denied supports○ “White flight” → blacks isolated in city center

● 1956: Pruitt-Igoe opens, 1972: is demolished○ Poor building management by white owners○ Hyper-isolation from amenities○ Surrounded by industrial zones

Segregative Housing Policies● Restrictive covenants

○ Private contracts not to sell or lease to blacks■ 1930s, some extending up to 75 years

○ 1948 SCOTUS rules:■ Equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment “erects no shield against

merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful”

○ 1968: SCOTUS case + Fair Housing Act legally bans racial discrimination in housing policies & practices

Segregative Housing Policies

● Gatekeeping Real Estate Agents○ 1920s: “Unrestricted colored districts”

○ 1930s: Racist ‘codes of ethics’

○ Post-1968: Blockbusting■ Intentional manipulation of property value in racial borderline areas to

encourage white homeowners to fear black residents, sell & move out

○ Persistent today: Racial Steering

1950

1970

1990

2010

It’s not legal anymore, but...“...most of the houses built in the days of legal segregation are still standing, which means that the unwritten rules of the housing market created during that era (concerning the value of property in a given neighborhood, [and thus the perceived value of those who inhabit it]...) continue to shape peoples’ most important economic decision: where to purchase a home.” -Crain & Wells, Stepping Over the Color Line

2010

$624,905

$174,860

83.29

1.712.27

74.032

Source: ACS 2006 -- 2010 (5-Year Estimates)Source: ACS 2006 -- 2010 (5-Year Estimates)

Source: MO Department of Secondary and Elementary School Education (DESE) Annual School Report Cards Source: MO Department of Secondary and Elementary School Education (DESE) Annual School Report Cards

$17, 721

$14,353$34

$512

Source: ACS 2006 -- 2010 (5-Year Estimates)

98.96

68.46

81.761

13.937

Circular PhenomenonWealthy white district,

High property value

Low tax rates & high tax revenue,Big school budgets

High performing students,Strong teacher retention, etc.

Great school reputation,Increased property value

MHP on Baltimore: http://on.msnbc.com/1H5iK67

Not just a St. Louis Story

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world… The nakedness is not an error, nor pathology. The nakedness is the correct and intended result of policy. The law did not protect us...a society that protects some through a safety net of schools, government-backed home loans, and ancestral wealth but can only protect you with the club of criminal justice has either failed at enforcing its good intentions or has succeeded at something much darker.”

Housing Legislation = Politically Murky

“...fair housing [legislation is] wrong because the ‘right of an individual to ownership and disposition of property is inseparable from the right of freedom itself.’”

-Ronald Reagan, 1976 Quoted from Gary Orfield, Race and the Liberal Agenda: The Loss of the Integrationist Dream

Kozol, Savage Inequalities

“The chemical plants do not pay taxes [in East St. Louis]. They have created small incorporated towns which are self-governed and exempt therefore from… supervision [by governments that are also directly accountable to local students & families].”

● 136 Acres● 22 city blocks● ~3,000 jobs

● Property tax-exempt

National Geospatial Intelligence Agency Proposed Development: 2016

Policy Recommendation

● Establish restrictions on size of tax-exempt entities within city limits○ Don’t tear down affordable housing to build it

● More tax revenue = more money for schools

What would you do?

Sarah C. Murphy New York University, 2015