America’s Most Costly Educational Failure, by PAUL CIOTTI
The CATO Institute, April 29, 1998 The education establishment thinks the cure for what ails America’s public schools is more money. But spending a fortune is no guarantee of better schools. It certainly didn’t help a poorly performing school district in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri. School reformers rejoiced when Federal District Judge Russell Clark took control of the district in ’85. He ruled it was unconstitutionally segregated, with dilapidated facilities and students who performed poorly. To bring the district into compliance. the judge ordered it and the state over the next 12 years to spend nearly $2 billion to build more schools, renovate old ones, integrate classrooms and bring student test scores up to national norms. But when the judge finally took himself off the case last year, there was little to show academically for all that money. Although the district’s 37,000 mostly minority students enjoyed some of the best‐funded scho...