COSTLY DESEG CASES ARE ABOUT TO END

Finally, Missouri can see light at the end of the tunnel in terms of court-ordered desegregation.

In late January, a federal judge freed Missouri as a defendant in the Kansas City school desegregation case. The judge decided that Missouri has met its obligation to the school district.

In St. Louis, voters acted responsibly earlier this month in approving a sales-tax increase tied to a settlement in that city's desegregation case.

The sales tax will generate about $23 million a year for city schools and trigger about $40 million a year from the state. That money will replace the $70 million the state will stop paying when the case ends.

The end of these two cases marks a financial victory for the state. All Missourians -- not just those in Kansas City and St. Louis -- have paid, and paid dearly, for these lawsuits.

Court-ordered desegregation has siphoned billions of dollars from the state budget for two urban school districts. Uses and abuses of these dollars have been a continuing source of aggravation for other school districts and taxpayers across the state.

Sadly, this vast influx of dollars hasn't resulted in top-quality or even mediocre schools. Student test scores in these school districts haven't improved dramatically despite the massive spending.

This has been especially true in Kansas City where Missouri has given nearly $2 billion to the district over the course of the 21-year-old lawsuit.

While the judge has freed Missouri as a defendant in Kansas City, there are still strings attached. The state must return to court in one year to determine if the district has done all it can to eliminate the remnants of the dual or segregated system. A final ruling isn't expected until March or April of next year.

In St. Louis, the wisdom of a federal district judge helped the settlement along. Judge Stephen Limbaugh warned participants that the proposed settlement was a better deal than they would get from continued litigation and judicial oversight.

Well said. Limbaugh's timely observation helped crystallize the issue and motivated voters to approve the tax.

Federal judges have a lot of power that can be used for good or bad. Kansas City was an example of judicial power that got out of hand. Money wasted on Olympic-sized swimming pools and other nonsense had nothing to do with treating whites and blacks equally. But Limbaugh demonstrated that judges with good sense and the best welfare of the parties in mind can make an extraordinary difference.

Long ago, the best interests of the students was lost as the millions of dollars began to roll in to both in St. Louis and Kansas City.

School officials wrongly assumed that more and more money would guarantee better schools. But that assumption proved erroneous, and many officials can't seem to let go of that theory.

After millions upon billions of dollars, the St. Louis and Kansas City school districts still suffer from inferior student performance. Money, it seems, doesn't buy good grades.

To cut the final binds of desegregation, Missouri is going to have to take a hard look at performance in these city school districts. As part of the Kansas City order, the judge has clearly stated that the district still needs to measurably close the gap in test scores between whites and blacks before the federal courts will walk away.

That problem remains a serious one. Missouri needs to send its best and brightest to these schools to find ways to improve education in the classroom. The state should look beyond the so-called experts and turn to the classroom teachers and those who teach the teachers. Success in these inner-city schools could go a long way to improving performance across the state. And it could help Missouri to cut the long strings that are tied to desegregation settlements in Kansas City and St. Louis.