Class struggles: How segregation endures in South's rural schools
Private academies sprang up in west-central Mississippi's Washington County and other parts of the rural South decades ago just as the gavel fell on court-ordered integration. They created a dual system of de facto segregation that still thrives — public schools for blacks, private schools for whites.
"There was never any integration to any extent," says Arthur Peyton, who taught 35 years in the county's public schools.
At Greenville Christian Academy, one of the three private academies here, 357 children start their day with a prayer and a Bible reading. Just three of them are black.
Less than a mile away, at public Weston High School, Jarad Avritt is an honor student and editor of the campus newspaper. He's one of only four whites out of 576 students.
"It's creating a real offbeat system," says 18-year-old Avritt, who rejected his parents' offers to send him to a private school.
"Different races aren't getting to see what each race is about. When they get into the real world, they don't know how to interact with each other."
According to a Duke University study, private schools still serve as the primary vehicle for educational "white flight" in rural, predominantly black stretches of the South.
In the 1999-2000 school year, private schools enrolled more than half of all white students in 41 nonmetropolitan counties in the region, 29 of which were in Mississippi, Alabama or Georgia. These also tended to be the counties, according to the study, where, in the past, Jim Crow separate-but-equal laws were "most rigid and severely enforced."
In these places, says Duke researcher Charles Clotfelter, "private schools became — and continue to be — the primary means of maintaining segregation in K-12 schooling."
Clotfelter also noticed a trait unique to the South when it came to private schools — private-enrollment share tended to rise with the nonwhite percentage of the county. His study found the share of whites attending private schools in counties over 80 percent nonwhite was at least triple the rate for counties below 60 percent nonwhite.
The dual system in Mississippi began with the demise of an outlawed one.
In the late 1960s, federal courts banned the "Freedom of Choice" system that allowed parents to send their children to the school of their choice regardless of location, with the idea that whites would migrate to schools in white neighborhoods and blacks to schools in black neighborhoods.
Between 1967 and 1972, Mississippi's private-school enrollment tripled. Today, according to Clotfelter's study, there are 10 counties in the state where more than 90 percent of the white students are in private schools.
In Washington County, about 65 percent of the 66,977 residents are black. About 13 percent of the county's 13,154 public-school students are white. At the private and parochial schools, the white percentage jumps to 85 percent.
Many say parents send their children to private schools in search of a better education or one based on religion. Critics say the system is rooted in racism.
Open admissions, but ...
All of the state's academies have an open-admissions policy. But the tuition, around $3,000 a year, puts a private-school education out of reach to many in the chronically poor Delta.
"When Freedom of Choice was ended in about 1968 or 1969, I think the white parents became fearful of things they didn't know and of people they didn't know," says Greenville Christian Headmaster Maureen Long.
"It really was more social than anything else. People are afraid to be educated together or to trust each other," says Long, who taught 25 years in public school.
Peyton says the dual system poses a money issue, and public schools come out on the short end. He says the school district attempted to pass bond issues for school improvements at least three times and failed.
"If there are no white kids in schools, what kind of bond issues can you have?" Peyton says, explaining white parents won't vote for higher taxes if their children aren't going to benefit.
The academies generate most funds from tuition and fees. About 75 percent of the 120 schools in the Mississippi Private School Association have federal tax-exempt status, says MPSA Executive Director David Derek. Many of the schools have a Christian-based curriculum, but not all.
"A controlled environment"
"I think the parents feel they want more control," says academy headmaster Long. "They like to regulate what their children are being taught somewhat."
Backers of private schools also say they provide better preparation for college. Last year, Mississippi's academy graduates made a composite score on the American College Test of 20.4, compared with 18.6 for public-school students.
Academy teachers are not required to get state certification, but the MPSA says its certification process is "as rigorous as the state's."
Rodney Brown, headmaster at the 884-student Washington School, has never worked in the public-school system, and says he has no desire to.
"We have a controlled environment — a safe environment. That's important," he says, adding the school has 12 black students and "a number of Asians."
Washington County Superintendent Arthur Cartlidge says his school system has been hurt by the academies. Weston High, for example, has been classified as underperforming.
"If you want a strong school system, you want to look at a system with both black and white so you can pool your resources," he says.
Peyton says the only way whites would stop sending their children to private schools is if "the economy got so poor that the middle class couldn't support" academies.
Weston Principal Ann Mitchell says a stronger public-school curriculum is key to changing the situation, and at least one high-profile initiative suggests she is right.
The Barksdale Institute for Reading, founded by former Netscape President Jim Barksdale, has pumped millions of dollars into low-performing, predominantly black elementary schools to improve reading. And as scores at some of the schools have improved, they have also attracted white students.
Of the 78 Barksdale schools, 36 had an increase in white enrollment between the 2001 and 2002 school years, according to state education statistics.
East Flora Elementary in Madison County is one of those schools. Principal Martha D'Amico says when she arrived in 2001, the school was 3 percent white. This year, it's 18 percent white.
Ramona Robuck, who is white, tried home-schooling and private academies before she enrolled four of her children at East Flora. Initially, she was apprehensive.
"My concern was that their identities would be blurred by the influence of the predominantly black culture, and I was concerned about there being more opportunity for violence," she says.
She and her children, who range in age from 5 to 11, were won over.
"They love it. We have a lot more opportunities for them outside of academic studies," she says.