SCHOOLS WANT EQUITY, MORE MONEY, BUT...

Just seven years after the historic rewrite of Missouri's formula for distributing state aid to local school districts, that formula remains unfair to many districts. So says an 11-page report released by the Missouri School Board Association.

The group represents about 80 percent of the state's 524 school districts. The report questions whether Missouri's school finance system passes legal muster.

As Yogi Berra might say, this is deja vu all over again.

It was a lawsuit filed about a decade ago that set the stage for a judge's ruling that the state formula was unconstitutional owing to vast inequities. That ruling came down in January 1993, in turn setting the stage for the Missouri Legislature's rewrite of the formula, which it accomplished with that year's Outstanding Schools Act.

Today, as a decade ago, some districts spend nearly three times as much as others on a per-pupil basis, largely because of a heavy reliance on local property taxes to pay for education. This typically gives property-rich, suburban districts an advantage. For example, rural McDonald County spent less than $4,000 per student in the 1998-99 school year, while Clayton, a St. Louis suburb, spent more than $11,000.

Guess what: Officials in both district say more money will be needed. This is over and above the $350 million added to each year's totals back in 1993 by the tax increases of the late Gov. Mel Carnahan. The problem is, more money, no matter how much, is never enough.

Meanwhile, a state study released earlier this year found that Missouri's public school districts need $4.3 billion for new schools and renovations to older buildings. The school board association will continue to try to pass a constitutional amendment lowering the margin required for passing local bond issues from either two-thirds or four-sevenths.

Like the poor, it seems, the money woes of school districts will be ever with us.