KC DESEG CASE BACK IN COURT AFTER ANOTHER GOOFY DECISION

Missouri pumps about $100 million each year into desegregation efforts in the Kansas City School District. Over the years, the horror stories of wasteful spending and missing monies have trickled out.

But before- and after-school day care paid by the state? This is the height of absurdity.

On Monday, the attorney general's office rightfully argued before the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals that court-ordered day care for all elementary students in the Kansas City district should be ended. The program costs about $5 million annually -- of which $3.75 million came directly from state coffers.

U.S. District Judge Russell Clark, the godfather of the Kansas City school desegregation case, issued the order in July requiring the state to foot the bill for before- and after-school day care.

Many Missouri parents are struggling to make ends meet, and day-care costs can cost hundreds of dollars each month. Many are probably wondering how the state can pay for such care in Kansas City but not the rest of the state. That sounds suspiciously like discrimination.

Monday's hearing was significant. It marks the first time the appeals court has had an opportunity to consider the Kansas City desegregation case since the Supreme Court's decision last year that should have put an end to state funding. In the last two decades, the state has been forced by court order to spend $3.7 billion on desegregation programs in Kansas City and St. Louis.

Excluding California, Missouri has paid out more in desegregation payments than all the other 48 states combined.

Judge Clark is out of touch with fiscal realities, and Missouri has been powerless to stop his nutty mandates.

Attorneys for the school district argued that the before- and after-school daycare offering was an "appropriate desegregation program" and that the district would pay for it if the state would not.

Great. That's the district's choice. If district taxpayers want that kind of program, then they should foot the bill themselves. But it simply isn't a cost the entire state should bear.

Perhaps this day-care program will be just the ticket to open the eyes of the appeals court as to the wastefulness of desegregation spending in Kansas City.