STATE FUNDING OF FAILED KC DESEG PROGRAM FINALLY WILL END

When it is all said and done, Missouri taxpayers will have spent nearly $2 billion on school desegregation in Kansas City -- thanks to the rulings over the past 20 years of U.S. District Judge Russell Clark.

Now Judge Clark had decided to call it quits, both for court-ordered state spending on the failed effort and for his career on the bench, which will end when he retires later this year.

The good news is that Clark issued his ruling on the state spending portion of the long-running desegregation program before retiring. Otherwise, a new judge would have had to step into the case, which probably would have delayed a final ruling for months, possibly years.

The not-so-good news comes from the empty feeling in the pits of taxpayers' stomachs -- taxpayers who have been forced to pay inflated taxes to support the endless folly in Kansas City. And careful readers of Clark's 59-page decision will get the feeling that the judge finally understood what so many taxpayers have known for a long time: no amount of money is the simple answer to desegregation.

In fact, Clark's ruling acknowledges that he ordered the state to start paying the lion's share of desegregation costs in Kansas City because prior state funding had been spent on a school system that wasn't integrated -- at least in his opinion. Now the judge concedes that the $2 billion gobbled up by the district hasn't produced an integrated school system either. Therefore, Clark is letting the state off the hook.

The state's obligation will end in three years when the last of the court-ordered $320 million is paid to Kansas City. The judge's view that desegregation is still an objective, not a reality, was underscored by his decision to keep his court-ordered local school levy in effect. This means taxpayers in the Kansas City district will continue to pay an extra $75 million a year for desegregation efforts -- money they could be saving if Clark thought integration had been achieved.

What a sad situation. All those millions of dollars spent because the focus has been on desegregation and not on the quality of education. Just think what might have been accomplished if the intent of the state funding had been improved programs for the minority students who have long made up most of the student population in the Kansas City district.