Daarel Burnette II of Education Week delves into the history of Black communities demanding education and school boards conspiring to deprive them of opportunities and resources. We zoom in on Virginia’s reparations to Black citizens, now in their 60’s, who were excluded from schools when Prince Edward County shut its schools to avoid integration. Mr. Burnette, a “military brat,” theorizes about why children of Black military families do so much better academically than their civilian peers.
Overview
00:00-00:50 Intros
00:50-02:06 Prince Edward County and its significance
02:06-03:31 Virginia’s reparations fund
03:31-07:09 Reactions of reparations recipients
07:09-09:44 Lessons from other state reparations programs
09:44-13:28 Essential elements of a reparations program
13:28-17:24 Overtaxing and underfunding
17:24-19:28 Black Lives Matter movement and educational equity
19:28-22:00 Teachers’ beliefs about genetics and achievement
22:00-24:08 Coleman report and assumptions about Black families
24:08-26:05 History of Black demands for public education; Freedmen’s schools; Rosenwald schools; attacks on Black schools by KKK and White Citizens Councils
26:05-29:00 Students from Black military families outperform civilian students; achievement gap almost eliminated in Department of Defense schools
29:00-35:25 Military base interventions to improve schools serving military families
35:25-38:48 Integration blinds us to what happens afterward; not the end of the story
38:48-44:30 Freedmen’s schools and Rosenwald schools
44:30-46:31 Why knowledge of history is so essential
46:31-48:00 Outro
Transcript
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References
Book The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
