FOR WHOM DOES THE BELL TOLL?

Before January 1993, when it came to public education, Missourians had the worst of all worlds. Tax support of public elementary and secondary schools in Missouri was so patently inequitable that it ultimately became the responsibility of educational professionals to challenge the system. Thus was born an effort on the part of several score school superintendents to challenge, in a series of lawsuits, the fairness and efficacy of the state's tax distribution among more than 500 school districts throughout the state.

The so-called formula distribution that was in effect in January 1993, was for all purposes a system of perpetuating inadequate educations for thousands of young boys and girls in the state. Devised originally to enhance equity, a key purpose for any taxpayer-funded program, the old formula was anything but fair. It withheld from the poorest districts and distributed to the wealthier ones, and was so skewed with politics and political power that it remained in effect despite the admission of practically everyone that changes were required and should be made.

The political process being what it is, these changes, although promised year after year, were never fulfilled. For one thing, those areas receiving a greater proportion of state aid were in political ascendancy in the state Capitol, and thus effectively blocked efforts of reform, even attempts to revise the formula.

School professionals who tired of this inequity and who despaired of its evolution toward fairness eventually prevailed when, in January 1993, a circuit court judge in Cole County handed down a decision that countless others had reached long before: the school foundation formula was inequitable and needed fixing. Even those who had defended the old formula expressed a desire to correct what badly needed correcting.

The result was legislative effort that was to become known as SB 380, and regardless of what name it was given, it did in a matter of speaking become the answer to the prayers of a majority of the school districts in Missouri. Finding equity for state school aid distribution proved to be more a mathematical one than one hammered out through the legislative process. Computers were consulted more than professionals, which seems to be society's methodology these days, and these electronic marvels brought forth a solution that was based on these premises:

1. The new formula must provide sufficient aid to poorly funded schools that will enable them to expand curricula and provide educational services required in today's environment.

2. The formula should not reduce the amount of assistance accorded more affluent districts in consideration of fairness and equity for all children.

3. The formula must set minimum financial investments by local districts, since it is not incumbent, or financially possible, for state government to carry the total cost of elementary and secondary education in more than 500 districts throughout the state.

While the process of finding formula equity was not entirely free of the political process, as could be expected within a legislative branch that pays homage to that force, it did arrive at something resembling fairness. Most certainly the new formula did meet many objections raised by the old one, namely that some degree of equity was essential for the well-being of thousands of young boys and girls within our state.

Enactment of SB 380 required, as would be expected, the necessary funds to activate its provisions. It does no good to reform if there are not funds to carry it out, and thus was born a tax increase that was designed to finance, over a period of time, the improvements promised by the provisions of the new foundation formula.

It is this tax increase that has given cause to those Missourians least interested in educational improvement and equity. Those who seek to move Missouri from the last percentile in public educational support to at least its national ranking in per capita income applauded the work of the 1993 General Assembly and those state officials who worked hard to enact SB 380 and its resultant tax increases.

Those least interested in improving public education in our state, and this group includes a wide variety of citizens who have a right to their views, have consistently disapproved of SB 380 and its higher taxes. Opposition has even spurred the efforts of one member of the federal Congress, Rep. Mel Hancock of Springfield, to seek changes in the state Constitution and the method of raising new revenue for state government. The group also includes those who believe in the efficacy of private and parochial education, as well as Missourians who have no children enrolled in sub-standard schools throughout the state. There are others, of course, and each component of this opposition enjoys the privilege and right to pursue its own aims and philosophies.

It is not productive to criticize the motives of any of the players in this statewide issue. First of all, the private and public motives of those on both sides are oftentimes at odds. A devout anti-tax citizen is most often against change in any public sector and is not necessarily against improving public education as long as it is not personally expensive. A tax proponent can have numerous motives in supporting SB 380, and many of them do. But the issue is not really over the method of carrying out reform; it is over the costs of reform. Changes that promise improvement without extra investment are the best of all worlds, but unfortunately, they are also the rarest.

The real question on the November ballot is about adequate education for 850,000 children in Missouri.

Jack Stapleton is a statewide columnist on the Missouri legislature.