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Desegregation money at a stand still on Missouri senate floor

April 8, 1997
By: Renee Basick
State Capital Bureau Heated debate in Missouri senate delayed the vote on a bill that will distribute to schools one-hundred-and-seventy million dollars of desegregation savings.

Renee Basick reports from the state capital.

Proposed legislation designed to give schools millions of dollars that are left over from desegregation programs faced intense opposition on the senate floor.

Senator Harold Caskey, a democrat from Bates County, sponsored the controversial bill that will route most of the dollars into St. Louis and Kansas City schools.

Senator John Russell, a republican opponent from Laclede county says the bill will give poor kids who have more poor neighbors most of the funds.

Actuality:Senator Russell
RunTime:
OutCue:
Contents: [113K WAV file - It costs just as much to educate an out-state poor kid as it does to educate a poor kid in the city. This bill does not bring equity in the education of children.]

Casky disagrees, saying his bill will benefit the entire state.

Schools in St. Louis and Kansas City would get less of the money that will be left over from the collapse of desegregation under counter-legislation proposed by senator Ted House.

Renee Basick has the story from Jefferson City.

Money that once went to blur racial boundaries in Missouri schools would become more evenly distributed across the state as a part of Senator Ted House's bill.

House's legislation is a reaction agaisnt another bill designed to pour most of the funds into schools where poverty is prevalent.

He says this is a waste of money because internal structure must change first.

Actuality: Sen. Ted House
RunTime:
OutCue:
Contents: The most important part of the bill is to provide a "soft landing" for schools in the St. Louis and Kansas City area schools.

House says under his bill, money would be taken out of inefficient administration and put into classrooms, where it belongs.