URBAN SCHOOL REMEDIES MUST INCLUDE CHOICE

The State Board of Education has revoked accreditation of the Kansas City schools and put St. Louis officials on notice that they will lose theirs in 2002 if they don't shape up. The action followed another dismal report on students' test performance. St. Louis schools met three of 11 standards for minimum accreditation. Kansas City: none. Kansas City officials responded promptly by filing a lawsuit against the state board to set aside its action.

We believe the Kansas City lawsuit is basically a disgrace and look forward to its prompt dismissal. State officials are entirely correct to be proceeding as they are against both the Kansas City and St. Louis districts. They do so only after repeated warnings stretching over the years. In the face of failure this large, protracted over decades, drastic action is long overdue. No amount of hand-wringing or excuse-making will change the grim facts.

The tragedy is that by means of a one-sided settlement of the St. Louis desegregation case, that district received another two years' reprieve beyond this school year before its state accreditation can be yanked. So the children of that district are under what amounts to a nearly three-year sentence in the lousy schools in which government has trapped them. State Sen. Steve Ehlmann, R-St. Charles, is correct to decry this, observing that this delay will mean permanent failure for many students who won't get another chance at an education.

No question about it, revoking accreditation is a tough measure. It is indeed sad for Missouri and for city residents that it has come this. But the grim realities of our city schools can be ignored no longer. It is time for the state to face those realities and push ahead with all appropriate measures. In that mix of remedies, it is time that parental freedom to choose schools be on the table, front and center, here in Missouri, home to two of America's worst urban school systems. Nothing short of a dose of competition will force the bloated bureaucracies that run these districts to stop making excuses and start performing consistent with the vast amounts of money we taxpayers are sending their way.