School Segregation, Income, and Environmental Hazards: An Environmental Justice Study in Western New York

1. School Segregation, Income, and Environmental Hazards: An Environmental Justice Study in Western New York Kimberly L. Barrett & Lyndsay N. Boggess, Ph.D. Friday, November 16, 2012 American Society of Criminology- 2012 Annual Meeting Chicago, IL

2. Introduction • Link in the literature between school environment & student performance (Gottfredson et al., 2005) • School’s distance to Environmental Harms of special concern • Does location of environmental hazards in Buffalo perpetuate school segregation and concentrated disadvantage?

3. Literature Review & Background • Human Ecology vs. Race and Political Economy • Function of the market (Been, 1994) or race and SES interact (Bullard, 1994) • Schools and Proxy to Environmental Hazards • Children extra sensitive to toxins (Landrigan et al., 2010) • School Segregation, Environmental Hazards, and Buffalo • 6th most segregated city in the nation • Love Canal, Bethlehem Steel, Allied Chemical

4. The Current Study • Differentiates from prior environmental justice work by: • Being the first to focus on schools in Buffalo, NY • Studying years 2000-2010 • Hypothesizes: • H1: Schools with Low SES significantly closer to hazards • H2: School high in minority enrollment significantly closer to hazards • H3: Over time, schools close to hazards will become significantly segregated and have lower SES • Race and Political Economy Theory

5. Data • Two Sources: • Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (n = 72) • Envirofacts Database • New York State Department of Education (n = 50) • Obtained for Buffalo Public Schools, from DOE School Report Cards: NYSTART Database • Only schools with complete data for ten years included (4 schools dropped: initial n = 54)

6. Measures • Environmental Hazard • Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) (n = 28) • Facilities that use, manufacture, treat, transport or release and one of over 650 identified toxins • Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA) (n = 12) • Facilities that generate, treat, transport, store, or dispose of hazardous waste • Used RCRAs that “require corrective action”- in need of clean up response or program • Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) (n = 32) • Identify sites where mismanagement of waste occurs or has occurred

7. Measures • School Segregation • Race of students at each school and for district obtained for 2000-2010 • District Totals 2000: 56.8% Black; 29.5% White; 10.9% Hispanic • District Totals 2010: 56% Black; 23% White; 15% Hispanic • Socioeconomic Status (SES) • % of students eligible for free lunch at each school for 2000-2010 • Used as proxy for SES • District Total 2000: 66.5% of district eligible for free lunch • District Total 2010: 70% of district eligible for free lunch

8. Method • Use GIS to map schools and hazards • # of meters to nearest hazard • # hazards within 1 mile of school • Obtain segregation score for each school and district as a whole (Stretesky & Lynch, 2002; Darden & Kamel, 2000) • -1 = All white school & 1 = All minority • Test H1 and H2 using Bivariate Correlations for years 2000 and 2010 • H3 tested using OLS regression for each year

9. Results Location of Environmental Hazards and Public Schools in Buffalo Red = Hazard Blue = School

10. Results • District Wide Segregation Scores for 2000-2010

11. Results • H1: Schools with Low SES significantly closer to hazards • H2: School high in minority enrollment significantly closer to hazards • In 2000: only Hispanic Segregation marginally significant with # of meters to hazard, in opposite direction r = .247, p = .083) • Similar results found for 2001, 2002, and 2003 only • Hispanic score: r=.243, .258, .239, p <.10, respectively • In 2010, neither minority composition or SES emerged as significantly related to proxy to hazard

12. Results • H3: Over time, schools close to hazards will become significantly segregated and have lower SES • Controlling for SES, as meters to hazard increase, segregation score increases (b = 1.5, p < .05) • After controlling for SES and prior year’s segregation score, coefficient for meters to hazard drops below significance in 2001, 2002, and 2003

13. Results • Additional Correlations Performed to Examine Percent Change in School Segregation Score & SES • In 2001 & 2006: % change in Hispanic segregation score marginally significantly related to distance to hazard in meters in hypothesized direction • In 2001 & 2006: % change in SES significantly related to distance to hazard in meters • For 2004 & 2005: % change in Black segregation score significantly related to # of hazards < 1 mile, in opposite direction than hypothesized

14. Discussion • Support for first and second hypothesis not found in this study • Marginally significant in few cases, and contingent on year • While Buffalo public schools appear to become increasingly segregated, this study does not find evidence that this is driven by proxy to environmental hazards • Observations do not appear to support either the Human Ecology or Race and Political Economy perspective • In fact, many of the significant relationships that emerge do so in opposite than hypothesized directions

15. Conclusions • Findings unpredicted but not unprecedented: • Krieg, 2005: No relationship between TRI sites & Black residents using zip codes in Buffalo • Downey, 2005: Minority segregated communities less proximate to TRI sites than white communities in Detroit • Paradox observed in “Rust Belt” Cities? • Downey suggests: Socially Desirable “good”(employment) spatially tied to socially undesirable “bad” (pollution) segregation acts as a protective factor • The group that monopolizes on the “good” over-exposed to the “bad”

16. Conclusions • Implications: • Buffalo must confront its segregation problem in schools & communities • More environmental hazards in the city of Buffalo than schools • Recommended that clean up endeavors should continue • Future Studies: • Continue examining environmental justice in other “Rust Belt” cities • Continued theorizing about proxy to environmental hazards, race, and SES

17. Thank you!