This paper examines the case for reparations as a mechanism for addressing systemic racism and educational inequality affecting Black students in the United States. Drawing on historical perspectives, the paper outlines the persistent achievement gap, discriminatory school funding structures, and racially biased property taxation practices. It then analyzes four specific reparation-based policy reforms: tax rebates for Black homeowners, elimination of racial gaps in school district revenues, removal of racist elements from school funding formulas, and incorporation of race into state school aid formulations. The paper argues that comprehensive reparation reforms are essential for dismantling institutional barriers and achieving genuine educational equity for Black youth.
The dehumanization and marginalization of Black people continue within institutions in the United States. Owing to racially driven policies, together with the stratification of social circumstances, the Black community is precluded from attaining the institutional support necessary for collective achievement (Wali-Ali, 2019). For many, the educational achievement gap represents a fundamental social justice problem.
Madyun (2011) indicates that the education attained by the average Black student on graduation day is comparable to what the average White student attained in the eighth grade. One of the fundamental ways to facilitate a resolution of this social issue might begin by addressing one of the more contentious problems in United States history: reparations. Reparations imply going above and beyond the social structures that enable institutional racism. This paper conducts a comprehensive analysis of reparation reforms in anti-racism and anti-oppression in education.
In contradiction to discriminatory narratives attributing Black underachievement to an absence of intellectual competence, the reality is that it is produced, in significant measure, by the historical impediment of Black intergenerational wealth accumulation. Along with segregationist policies that reinforce underprivileged communities, many Black children are pushed into lower socioeconomic standings that directly affect their academic achievement (Wali-Ali, 2019).
According to research conducted by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), inequalities in public education from kindergarten through grade 12 are outcomes of racial bias. Unlike their White counterparts, only 57 percent of Black students have access to a full range of science and mathematics courses essential for college preparation. This is considerably lower than the 71 percent of White students and 81 percent of Asian American students who gain significantly greater educational access. Furthermore, Black students are more often assigned teachers with fewer qualifications within their school districts (UNCF, 2022).
Beyond this inequality, there is clear disproportionality in how Black students experience disciplinary measures. According to a report by Gordon (2018), African American students constitute 16 percent of enrollment but account for 40 percent of suspensions handed out nationally.
As a result of racial biases among school administrators — whose demographics do not reflect the diverse student population — Black students are disproportionately targeted for misconduct and punishment. These apparent differences in disciplinary treatment are a key contributing factor to negative educational outcomes and to the school-to-prison pipeline. Zero-tolerance policies permeate students' day-to-day lives, leaving them vulnerable to victimization by a system of white supremacy (Gordon, 2018).
Reparations, understood as a compensation system for grave injustices, are not new to the United States. Throughout history, Native Americans were compensated with land and billions of dollars through various programs and settlements in recognition of their forced removal from their native lands. In the case of Japanese Americans, nearly $2 billion was paid to those who were incarcerated during the Second World War. Moreover, Jewish communities received reparations for the egregious injustices they faced during the Holocaust and benefited from various forms of investment over time (Ray and Perry, 2020).
Regrettably, Black Americans alone have yet to receive reparations for the racial injustices sanctioned by the state. In contrast, Black slavery enabled white households to accumulate enormous wealth. It is also important to acknowledge that the slavery endured by Black people was particularly brutal. Approximately 15 percent of enslaved Black people transported from West Africa died during the passage (Ray and Perry, 2020). They also frequently endured beatings and lynching for minimal perceived infractions.
Furthermore, slavery tore families apart — spouses were separated from one another and children from their parents. The case for reparations can be made on social, ethical, and economic grounds. The United States has been presented with numerous opportunities to redress slavery and ensure that Black Americans, too, could experience the American Dream, yet it has consistently failed to take meaningful action (Ray and Perry, 2020).
By dismissing reparations as an unfeasible solution to educational disparities, society ignores the needs of Black children that are continuously and systematically suppressed. The United States government not only can but should facilitate reparations for Black children in the form of housing subsidies, free education, federal stipends, preferential access to higher education, and land allocation.
Such measures would directly address the problem of financial insecurity among Black families. They would also steer the nation constructively toward resolving racialized disparities in education, health, and other sectors.
By focusing on the influence of socioeconomic standing on the achievement of Black students, the American government would be taking a proactive approach to this problem rather than becoming mired in endless political debates about the feasibility of reparations for Black Americans (Wali-Ali, 2019).
Throughout both the 19th and 20th centuries, the destructive actions undertaken by the government targeting Black communities were replicated in school districts across the nation. Amidst the ongoing failure of K-12 leaders to acknowledge and respect that historical experience, Black families today continue to suffer under the weight of those policies.
The governance structures of the K-12 system cause Black households to be excessively marginalized and underrepresented. State, district, and school zoning restrictions concentrate Black-student poverty in specific areas (Burnette II, 2020a).
The teaching force in the United States remains overwhelmingly white. Moreover, the integration of the property-tax-centered school funding model with historically racist housing policies results in Black homeowners being overburdened by taxation while majority-Black schools receive inadequate funding (Burnette II, 2020b).
Burnette II (2020b) argues that one particularly troubling finding is that over 40 percent of teachers indicated in a national survey that hereditary factors minimally explain why White students achieve better educational outcomes than their Black counterparts. This is the kind of unfounded reasoning that politicians use to justify denying Black communities access to quality teachers and schools. To help students address both historical and present-day trauma, K-12 leaders must undertake a candid, public reckoning with the role their institutions have played in the devaluation of Black children's education (Burnette II, 2020b).
Unequal schools are one of many manifestations of systemic racism. Transforming how schools are funded and how homeowners are taxed can serve as a vehicle for reparations. For several decades, white public schools have received greater funding than Black public schools. These disparities trace back to the "separate but equal" doctrine embedded in United States law in 1896 by the Supreme Court's ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson (Green III and Baker, 2021).
Despite the landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1954 mandating the desegregation of public schools, Black educational institutions continue to receive considerably less funding. Given that Black homeowners pay higher property taxes than White homeowners, there is a compelling argument that reparations should be provided through reforms that transform the taxation of Black homeowners and the funding of schools in Black communities (Green III and Baker, 2021).
A clear example of racialized educational injustice is the present-day educational system in New York. There has been a persistent struggle to facilitate the admission of Black and Latino students to specialized learning institutions in proportion to their numbers in the public school population (Harris, 2020). Currently, admission to these institutions is determined by a single examination, even though end-of-course assessments would not equally disadvantage these students. Black students also generally lack access to the same quality of test preparation available to White students (Harris, 2020).
The scale of inequality facing Black students seeking upward mobility through education was further illustrated by the 2019 college admissions scandal, in which widespread bribery schemes were found to favor White students, barring eligible underprivileged students in Black communities from admission (Gewertz, 2019).
According to existing research, there are several reform pathways through which reparations can address anti-racism and anti-oppression in education.
One of the underlying causes of racial funding disparities is housing segregation. This segregation has produced massive disparities in home values and the wealth that households can accumulate, which in turn affects the amount of funding that can be generated through property taxes for local Black public schools. Research by Green III and Baker (2021) uses Connecticut as an illustrative example: homes owned by Black people in that state have an average value of approximately $250,000, while homes owned by White people average more than $420,000 — a disparity of roughly $170,000.
Because Black-owned homes are valued considerably lower, higher tax rates are typically applied to generate sufficient local tax revenue — a phenomenon known as the "Black Tax." In Connecticut, for example, Black homeowners pay approximately 0.6 percent more in property taxes than White homeowners (Green III, Baker, and Oluwole, 2020).
Even with higher tax rates, Black homeowners do not generate equivalent property tax revenue for their public schools compared to White homeowners in the same region. The tax rates that would be required to close these gaps entirely would be prohibitively high, and these disparities are visible across multiple states (Green III, Baker, and Oluwole, 2020).
"Four specific reparative school funding reform policies"
Sosina, V. E., & Weathers, E. S. (2019). Pathways to inequality: Between-district segregation and racial disparities in school district expenditures. AERA Open, 5(3), 2332858419872445.
UNCF. (2022). K-12 disparity facts and statistics. Retrieved from: https://uncf.org/pages/k-12-disparity-facts-and-stats
Wali-Ali, N. (2019). How reparations can address educational inequities for Black American students. Berkeley Political Review. Retrieved from: https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2019/12/03/how-reparations-can-address-educational-inequities-for-black-american-students/
Wiltz, T. (2020). Black homeowners pay more than 'fair share' in property taxes. Pew Trusts.
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