DESEG PLAN OPENS WAY TO CHARTER SCHOOLS

Missouri's two long-running urban desegregation cases -- the two most expensive in American history -- have taken another turn toward what should be their terminal stages. A settlement has already been reached in Kansas City, where the state's obligation to continue funding will end next year. A key remaining question will be whether Kansas City voters approve their current school levy of $4.95 in an upcoming local vote. It took the April passage of a constitutional amendment by Missouri voters to permit this special rate for Kansas City voters, and now they must approve it themselves. This levy had earlier been established by order of the federal judge who had long had the case.

Across the state we note with interest that senior U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, one of four judges who had earlier presided over the St. Louis case, is getting it back after the death of his colleague, U.S. District Judge George Gunn. The late Judge Gunn had presided over the case for several years before his death last month. We think the designation of the level-headed Judge Limbaugh to handle it bodes well for resolution of the St. Louis case, if such can in fact be accomplished by any mortal.

Among Limbaugh's first duties as he re-acquaints himself with the case will be to examine the major desegregation bill passed by the General Assembly this year. The bill is far from perfect. Still, it represents an attempt by the state to do right by our two major urban school districts, helping to provide them the soft landing most have deemed essential as the state's role comes to an end.

Lawmakers passed the desegregation bill (Senate Bill 781) at the urging of retired St. Louis educator and civic leader William Danforth and his brother, former U.S. Sen. Jack Danforth. The former was appointed special mediator for the case, by the late Judge Gunn, to try to work out a settlement.

Prior to passage of the desegregation bill, about $80 million in deseg funding had already been rolled back into the foundation formula for distributing state aid to local school districts. Under SB 781, an additional $150 million is to be returned to local school districts across the state under the foundation formula.

Additionally, among the most important features of the bill is the one allowing establishment of charter schools in St. Louis and Kansas City. These are public schools, chartered by the state school board or other entity, which have a great measure of independence from many of the rules and regulations under which all other schools must operate. Charter schools allow a measure of innovation and parental choice previously unknown within the public school system. In other states, charters are showing great promise in reforming a previously unreformable school bureaucracy. In St. Louis, specifically, officials of two world-renowned institutions -- the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Missouri Historical Society -- have said they want to start charter schools to meet the needs of inner-city children.

None of this is to minimize the bill's flaws. Under the desegregation bill there is still far too much state money flowing to St. Louis and Kansas City schools as compared with those outstate. This on the strength of a dubious argument that concentrations of urban poverty make it more expensive to educate children there. Some of this may have been the price of getting charters, with all their innovative promise, passed into law.

For years the U.S. Supreme Court has sent signal after unambiguous signal that these desegregation cases can, and indeed must, come to an end. After the billions spent over the last generation, Missouri taxpayers can certainly look forward to that.