Editor’s note: This story was published on January 8, 2018.
South Carolina’s unique state-run school bus system emerged out of the civil rights era as a way to guarantee equal access to educational opportunity for all young people — black and white, rich and poor, according to the state Department of Education.
Two Furman University education professors question that narrative, saying educational equity was far from a priority in the 1950s in South Carolina.
Whatever your stance on the debate over the beginnings of the state-owned fleet, the result today is that South Carolina is the only state in the nation that owns and maintains its own school buses statewide.
“This was a decision that was made in the 50s and 60s when we integrated our schools,” said state Education Superintendent Molly Spearman.
State Education Department spokesman Ryan Brown said South Carolina created a statewide school bus system to guarantee transportation equality for all students.
“The state decided that in order to provide an equitable system of pupil transportation and ensure that race and geographic location would not factor into transportation quality, the decision was made for buses and maintenance to be provided by the state,” Brown said.
To Furman education professor Paul Thomas, that statement sounds like “revisionist history.”
South Carolina leaders of the 1950s may have wanted the state to run the school bus system as a way of thwarting integration and educational opportunity for black students, said Thomas and Furman education professor Scott Henderson.
“South Carolina fought school integration tooth and nail in the 1950s,” Henderson said. “South Carolina was as vehemently opposed to the Brown decision (the Supreme Court ruling which banned state-sanctioned segregation of public schools) as any other state in the country. State leaders were part of a massive resistance which had a policy of doing everything you could to prevent integration.”
Given that resistance to integration, it’s possible that at least some state leaders hoped “to perpetuate segregation” by controlling the school bus system statewide, Henderson said.
Investigative series on South Carolina’s school bus crisis:
Part 1:South Carolina’s school bus crisis: As lawmakers violate law, students are put at risk
Part 2:While students ride risky buses, governor and lawmakers haggle over how to buy new ones
Part 3:History of school bus fires in South Carolina worries education leaders
More:By the numbers: South Carolina’s school bus crisis
More:Ensuring access? Or denying it: history of SC school buses
More:How will Greenville lawmakers vote on McMaster’s school bus veto?
More:How will Anderson County lawmakers vote on McMaster’s school bus veto?
More:How will lawmakers in Pickens and Oconee counties vote on McMaster school bus veto?
