When they open later this month, 50 Philadelphia schools in the predominantly Black district will face scorching conditions because of inadequate funding for air conditioning.
In recent years, school closures due to extreme heat waves caused by climate change have disproportionately affected schools with predominantly Black and Brown student bodies. Systemic underfunding has prevented these schools from adapting to rising temperatures, forcing them to teach students in sweltering heat while finding other ways to stay cool.
Significance. In Philadelphia, about 50 schools will start the upcoming school year and open on August 24 without proper cooling and airflow infrastructure. This accounts for about a quarter of the School District of Philadelphia, according to Chalkbeat, an education-focused publication.
This is down from a few years prior, when 118 Philadelphia public schools had inadequate air conditioning. Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts donated $200,000 to add air conditioning units.
Overlooked angle. Inadequate funding and lack of resources to adapt to warm weather are a common challenge among schools across the U.S. that have predominantly Black and Brown student bodies.
In 2020, the Government Accountability Office released a report that found “41 percent of public school districts need to replace or update their HVAC systems in at least half their schools —roughly 36,000 schools across the country,” according to NEA Today, the National Education Association’s publication.
“Heat has substantially larger impacts on the achievement of students in lower-income school districts,” researchers at UCLA, Stanford University, and Boston University found in a study that looked at school districts where the majority of the student body relied on federally subsidized lunch rates.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 66% of Black students and 64% of Latino students receive free and reduced meals. In Philadelphia, 70% of school students get this type of support.
Researchers and experts have also highlighted that extreme heat makes it difficult for students to focus and learn in the classroom and during extracurricular activities, furthering learning disparities that already put Black and Brown children behind their peers of other races and ethnicities.
The power structure. The impacts of redlining and property tax-funded public schools heavily contribute to racial disparities in funding for such school needs as adequate cooling.
This history still puts Black and Brown kids at a disadvantage in school settings. Julia McGarry wrote recently for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. Her essay highlighted how the legacy of racist zoning has created systemic challenges for schools that have historically had Black and Brown residents
“K-12 public schools are primarily funded by local property taxes, which are derived from home and property values of the area. As a result of redlining, from 1980 to 2015, the average housing value in White neighborhoods increased by $225,000, with the housing value in non-White neighborhoods increasing by only $31,000. Consequently, school districts serving a majority-minority student population on average received 16% less funding from state and local revenue than predominantly White districts,” McGarry wrote.
This phenomenon happens nationwide, in cities like Baltimore and Detroit, with public schools that primarily serve Black and Brown students.
The district is trying to solve the problem.
The Philadelphia school district is “shifting from separate, immediate renovations to integrating cooling upgrades into the broader, long-term modernization projects planned over the next 10 years,” spokesperson Naima DeBrest told Chalkbeat in a statement.
Philadelphia School District Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. announced a $2.8 billion plan to maintain and modernize district facilities in January to adapt to the changing climate. The proposed plan spans 10 years and should update 307 district facilities if construction remains on track.
