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Race Differences in Public School Expenditures: Disfranchisement and School Finance in Louisiana, 1890-1910

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Robert A. Margo
Robert A. Margo*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

No matter how one measures its commitment to public education, the S outh in 1890 lagged far behind the rest of the nation. Twenty years later, southern public schools were still characterized by relative backwardness, but the preceding two decades had seen impressive expansion in absolute terms. Among the salient features of this transformation were sharply increased per pupil expenditures, school terms, and enrollment rates; greater provision of normal schools and related institutions; and high rates of investment in school capital. State legislatures increased their appropriations, limitations on local taxes were abolished, and the number of counties and school districts voting to increase school expenditures skyrocketed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , Winter 1982 , pp. 9 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1982 

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Footnotes

I would like to thank my thesis advisers, Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, for their detailed comments on earlier drafts of this article; seminar participants at Harvard, Rochester, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Princeton, Pennsylvania, and Chicago for useful suggestions; and Richard Freeman for allowing me to use data that he has collected. All errors are my own. This research was supported by Harvard University, the Joint Center for Urban Studies, Harvard-MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 1980 Social Science History Association meetings in Rochester, New York.

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