MISSOURI WATCH: STATE MUST SOLVE PROBLEMS CREATED BY DESEG SOLUTIONS

Missouri faces its greatest challenge in the resolution of a problem that too many believed was resolved when federal courts handed down desegregation orders for public schools in St. Louis and Kansas City. Many were convinced the orders that became effective 16 years ago would solve problems that had their beginnings far earlier, so today's resolutions must take into account the dilemma of racial divisions and those with economic, sociological and cultural origins.

Suggesting easy answers to the troubling question of how much state tax money will have to continue to be diverted to Missouri's two major urban areas is neither helpful nor instructive; indeed, it is counter-productive. And those who now believe that one bill in the General Assembly is all that is required are as deluded as those who urge an unlimited amount of money be spent to repair the federal court experiments that have tried the patience, not to mention the pocketbooks, of the remainder of Missouri's citizens.

The core problems of both urban centers are not only centered in the methods of education but in a far wider range, from economic to social, from racial to cultural, from ignorance to indifference. The schools of any given region reflect both the ability and the willingness of the area to foster and then maintain viable individual neighborhoods within a much larger collective neighborhood. Unfortunately, this fostering and maintenance of individual neighborhoods has failed to materialize in either city, with thousands and then tens of thousands of citizens leaving their homes for rapidly expanding suburban neighborhoods. Those who have been financially unable to leave have had to remain, and therein stand both the social and economic roadblocks to effective public school transition plans.

Within a few weeks the state treasurer's office will write a check that boosts Missouri's investment in the nation's most extensive desegregation programs over the $3 billion mark. This is more than Missouri spent to finance its entire state government less than four decades ago. With the expenditure of such an amount, taxpayers have a right to ask just what they received from their investment and what steps are needed to end this funding imbalance between urban and outstate education.

It would be foolish to say this investment has been worthless, for it hasn't. Thousands of young school children have benefited from improved educational opportunities; some capital investments have proved beneficial and can be utilized for years to come; lessons have been learned from integration that will serve the interests of more tolerant generations.

On the other hand, the abandonment of neighborhood schools, particularly in St. Louis, has accelerated the deterioration of once-viable neighborhoods which were deprived of a part of local-community living and problem-solving. Buses that deliver young children to and from schools four hours every day simply enhance the belief that meaningful institutions are no longer available to them, making them unworthy of benefits others take for granted. This was the message delivered by federal court orders, and regardless of the implied concern motivating them, they spoke volumes to the families whose children were bused to areas now occupied by former neighbors.

Dr. William Danforth, who has been charged by court order with devising suitable post-desegregation plans, pleads for more time to resolve the problems attached to his assignment, the principal one cited thus far is the poverty of neighborhoods in the affected areas. There is no argument that low-income neighborhoods are not inducements to scholastic achievement, but current conditions have been fostered by the very programs federal judges offered as solutions. This irony is not lost on much of the state's population, nor is there much laughable about arguments from parents who fled the city for suburban areas that political remedies will resolve the problems they helped create and now refuse to address and resolve.

The pessimists among us believe nothing short of abandoning St. Louis City and ignoring neighborhood isolation in Kansas City are the only alternatives available. The optimists believe, like earlier federal judges, that pouring more state money into minority classroom programs will cure the deterrent problems that prevent real solutions. Even if the state were to double its per-pupil expenditure in now-blighted neighborhoods, there is no guarantee we would see an end to racial diversity in academic achievement. So many factors affect this goal that, as programs over the last 16 years prove, merely throwing money into classrooms is no longer a satisfactory solution.

Realists will say that not only must the state expend vast sums to restore educational advantages in neighborhoods that continue to be segregated, it must also provide programs that will educate parents on the importance of encouraging their children and see to it that they feel a part of society, rather than pawns in brave attempts to overcome the reality of racial, economic, social and cultural obstacles. Blighted neighborhoods lack the resources to create essential support programs and the necessary environment to make them work. Adults, as well as their children, have already been exposed to the hazards of public indifference and neighborhood flight; they need ways to overcome this indifference and deal with the consequences of empty homes on their blocks and broken windows in abandoned schools. The alternative is to move families that have stayed behind to new neighborhoods in more affluent areas, which, of course, is impossible and beyond even the ability of state government to fund. Indeed, this would only trigger more flight.

It would be a mistake to devise programs that only try to resolve conditions created by earlier court-mandated solutions. After 16 years we should have learned there is more to education than equally mixing black and white in classrooms.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.