DESEG SPENDING: MONEY ISN'T THE ANSWER

The scandal that is the Kansas City school desegregation case continues to amaze. Last week a joint House-Senate committee looking into the state's two desegregation cases met in Kansas City to hear testimony. They were told the district will need $40 to $65 million in additional money each year after the state's funding of desegregation in Kansas City and St. Louis dries up.

In other words, after everyone knows the spending is supposed to end, just keep it coming. Who are these witnesses? Arthur Benson, for one. He is the attorney representing the children in the deseg lawsuit who has been paid millions for his work in this case. Jackson County Executive Kathryn Shields, for another, along with business executive Bill Berkeley of the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City. These are the folks telling Missouri taxpayers to just keep shoveling money at their schools.

"This is a sorry and sad district," Benson told the committee, "but it's a history we need not repeat." He has that right. Why then, is he arguing for precisely that, barely mentioning the urgent need for wholesale reform?

Countered Sen. Morris Westfall, R-Halfway, "If money is the answer, why have we failed?" Benson replied: "We should not be fighting over the food on the plate. We should be adding more food to the plate."

Westfall is asking the right question, the very one hard-pressed Missouri taxpayers ask anyone who will listen. Benson is giving the wrong answer, and sooner or later urban school officials are going to have to wake up and smell the coffee.