Section 3 Community Context and Environmental Conditions
3.1 Introduction and Methodology
The purpose of the literature review presented in this report is to contextualize the social and economic conditions that contribute to adverse effects on residents in Forsyth County, North Carolina. Community reports were the primary source of material for this literature review. Forsyth Futures’ staff convened local stakeholders for:
- community reports that focused on asset-based work, and/or
- reports that were conducted by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) or organizations led by BIPOC in the community.
A total of nine reports are included in the literature review that met one or both of the aforementioned conditions. It is important to note that the reports under discussion in the literature review are not an exhaustive list. There could be reports that stakeholders and/or staff at Future Forsyth failed to include in the literature review, however, staff have reviewed all of the reports that they are aware of, and the findings of the literature review are consistent with other organizations’ and residents reports on the environmental conditions and inequities that people of color face in the community.
3.2 Key Findings
- Community reports highlight racial and ethnic inequities across various economic well-being measures including income, educational attainment, and home values.
- Educational attainment is a primary pathway to increase economic opportunity but racial and ethnic disparities are prevalent throughout all levels of the education system.
- Upward economic mobility in Forsyth County lacks behind other counties in the state.
3.3 Community Context and Environmental Conditions
Racial and ethnic disparities in Forsyth County and, in particular, Winston-Salem, persist due to the pervasive disinvestment in people of color and their neighborhoods (The Winston-Salem Foundation 2018). Disparities across education, healthcare coverage, homeownership, home values, income, asset poverty, and other areas of civic and social life are stark especially for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) (Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) 2012), (FaithHealthNC 2014), (Southern Coalition for Social Justice 2020), (The Forsyth Promise 2020), (The Winston-Salem Foundation 2018), (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Government 2019). Thus, it is not surprising that upward economic mobility, or the ability to improve one’s social class position, is hard to achieve for Black residents in Forsyth County (Brown Griffin 2021), (Brown Griffin 2020). In fact, overall, Forsyth County ranks among the worst counties in the state for upward economic mobility (Brown Griffin 2020).
A primary pathway to increase one’s earnings is through higher educational attainment, but at almost every level within the education system, disparities exist that impact people of color’s chances at obtaining a college degree (Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) 2012), (Southern Coalition for Social Justice 2020), (The Forsyth Promise 2020), (The Winston-Salem Foundation 2018). Black residents lack significantly behind White peers in nursery school or preschool programs (The Winston-Salem Foundation 2018). Additionally, significant racial, ethnic, and class disparities permeate K-12 schools in Forsyth County (Southern Coalition for Social Justice 2020), (The Forsyth Promise 2020). Inequity is present in educational measures such as early childhood literacy, third grade reading, eighth grade math proficiency, and eleventh grade American College Testing (ACT) proficiency tests. Each measure can contribute to long-term educational disparities. For example, the reading proficiency test taken at the end of third grade measures students’ basic reading skills. The test is critical to future learning activities since “[a]fter third grade, [teaching] instruction transitions from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’” (Southern Coalition for Social Justice 2020). Those students with insufficient third grade reading levels are at a greater risk of falling behind in school. Overall, 52% of students in the 2018-2019 academic year were deemed proficient in third grade reading level. The disparities are stark with 74% of non-Hispanic White students proficient compared to 37% of African American students and 35% of Hispanic/Latino(a) students. Socioeconomic status also affects K-12 proficiency tests with 64% of economically disadvantaged students not at the third grade-level reading proficiency standard compared to 33% of non-economically disadvantaged students.
The educational disadvantage for people of color starting at the beginning of students’ formal learning does not only apply to various proficiency tests but also in school discipline. In society at large, changes to the criminal justice system over the last 30 years has led to “mass incarceration” in which the incarceration rates of adult men and women, disproportionately people of color, sharply increased in the last few decades due to more punitive punishments for non-violent crimes Rocque and Snellings (2018). Similarly, researchers have argued that the educational system has also “become more punitive and less restorative in recent years” (Rocque and Snellings 2018) as negative educational outcomes are correlated to criminal justice system involvement. This reflects what is known as the school-to-prison pipeline and once students are caught in the pipeline it is difficult for students to be successful in school (Southern Coalition for Social Justice 2020). School suspensions are referred to as exclusionary discipline because it removes the student from learning and one measure of that discipline is short-term suspension where the student is suspended less than 10 days. In Forsyth County schools, the percentage of short-term suspensions are overwhelmingly given to Black and Hispanic/Latino(a) students (Southern Coalition for Social Justice 2020), (The Forsyth Promise 2020). For example, in the 2017-2018 academic year Black students made up a little over a quarter of the student population in the county but about 60% of short-term suspensions were given to Black students. Schools are also inextricably linked to the criminal justice system directly as a little less than half of all juvenile court referrals in North Carolina from 2018-2019 came from the schools (Southern Coalition for Social Justice 2020).
Students themselves are cognizant of the inequities in school and economic mobility at large (Brown Griffin 2021), (Brown Griffin 2020). While education is still identified as a source of opportunity as the ‘American Dream,’ youth in Forsyth County identified how living on one side of town versus another side shapes opportunities and resources (Brown Griffin 2020). They also recognize the attention given to them by police but lack of attention from city and county government officials.
Where residents live in the county can significantly affect life opportunities in education, income, and health and safety among others. The third-grade reading-level proficiencies by elementary schools in Forsyth County were mapped by (The Forsyth Promise 2020) and showed a clear East-West Winston-Salem divide, with more students on the west side having higher levels of proficiency. This underscores the long-lasting effects of state and county disinvestment on some neighborhoods. Home values in the county have fluctuated, but, overall, the values have increased in the county with sharp declines in certain areas of Winston-Salem (The Winston-Salem Foundation 2018). These areas are largely in East and Southern Winston-Salem, areas which are occupied predominantly by people of color. While research suggests that owning a home should serve as an asset for the homeowner, or at least provide a net benefit, if a home is owned in a neighborhood that has experienced disinvestment and therefore has less home value, then that home ownership benefit can diminish.
In addition to homeownership and home values in a neighborhood, certain neighborhoods have better access to public transportation than others. Transportation is consistently cited as a barrier to receiving various services in Forsyth County, particularly health care (Cutts et al. 2016), (FaithHealthNC 2014). Reliable transportation is also critical for employment. Residents want not only full employment, but also wages to meet their basic needs (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Government 2019). Some residents work full time and still live in poverty, suggesting that labor force participation is not the only important factor, but the quality of jobs being offered in the community as well. The most common jobs among Black workers also tend to be the lower-paying jobs, furthering inequality (The Winston-Salem Foundation 2018).
Community reports suggest that in order for the county to begin to make in-roads to equity, state and county governments need to invest in communities that have historically lacked such investment and invest in communities that were displaced throughout the city of Winston-Salems’ development (The Winston-Salem Foundation 2018). Educational opportunities and attainment are inextricably linked to economic development, so much so that students still aspire for the ‘American Dream’ and yet recognize the inequity in their own neighborhoods and schools (Brown Griffin 2020). The community has documented the ways in which people of color in the county are disproportionately affected by the social structures they are embedded in and it is necessary for the community to start reimagining the practices and policies that lead to adverse community experiences in order promote a more equitable future.