Missouri State Capitol Building
Jefferson City, Missouri 65101
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| Co-Chairman | Co-Chairman | |
| Sen. Ted House | Rep. Steve Stoll |
Committee Members:
We respectfully submit to you the Final Report of the Joint Interim Committee on School Desegregation and Finance. The Committee was established in July of 1997 and was charged to analyze the state's desegregation efforts in St. Louis and Kansas City, with emphasis on management and governance, phase-out issues including the continuance or reduction of desegregation programs, funding (especially the funding of at-risk students), and transportation. The Committee was asked to provide a report containing recommendations and legislative responses, as appropriate.
The Committee held 5 hearings to take public testimony throughout the state and 3 special workshop sessions. Hearings took place in Cape Girardeau on August 19, Jefferson City on September 11, Springfield on September 23, St. Louis on October 7, and Kansas City on October 21. The Committee heard testimony from 102 persons including school administrators, students, parents, school board members, state administrators, retired teachers, union representatives, business leaders, community activists, legal counsel for both St. Louis and Kansas City plaintiffs, as well as the St. Louis settlement coordinator. The Committee also received written comments from several who did not testify in person and took additional testimony from the St. Louis School Board on November 5 in Jefferson City.
In both St. Louis and Kansas City, the Committee took a half-day tour of schools. In St. Louis, the Committee visited Vashon High School, the Gateway Complex (Gateway Middle and Elementary Schools and Michael's School for the Orthopedically Handicapped), and Columbia Elementary Community Education Center. In Kansas City, the schools visited were Central High School, Rogers Middle School, and Chick Elementary School. The Committee also received useful commentary on urban governance issues from Cleveland Superintendent of School Dick Boyd at its St. Louis post-hearing work session and on research-based school reforms from Johns Hopkins University educational researcher Sam Stringfield in Kansas City.
On September 29, the Committee held a workshop session in Jefferson City devoted to the topic of school finance, reviewing the structure of Missouri's school funding formula and how other states fund at-risk education. John Augenblick, of the Denver school finance consulting firm Augenblick and Meyers, provided helpful comparative information at that session. The Committee held its first working session to discuss recommendations and proposed legislation on November 6. A second session was held on November 25.
At its Cape Girardeau post-hearing work session, the Committee identified several issues it believed were the most important to address within the broad framework of the charge. Those issues, along with one that emerged during the course of the hearings, serve in this report as a framework on which the Committee's findings and recommendations are presented.
The charge to the Committee was broad enough that the Committee could have legitimately explored many other issues; the exclusion of an issue from this report should not be construed to mean that the issue lacks merit. The complexity of the situation should prevent this report from being construed as the final word on the subject.
The signing of the report by a committee member does not indicate that every member agrees with every assertion in the report. Signing the report should be interpreted as agreement in principle with the primary findings and recommendations made by the committee, which serve as a framework for the discussion of the issues in the approaching legislative season. Our report is offered as a bipartisan approach to begin the long process of restoring local control to schools, establishing a more equitable distribution of state education resources, and supporting all schools in their efforts to make a quality education available to every Missouri child.
Defining "at-risk" and funding "at-risk" students in desegregation phase-out districts