You may remember the Kansas City schools for their court ordered billion dollar new school project where nearly every school in the district was replaced with state of the art education environments.
Remember the liberal promises that the poor education in Kansas City schools was about resources and that once the schools were brought up to speed suburbanites would be moving back into the city.
Well....... things haven't worked out that way................
Kansas City was held up as a national example of bold thinking when it tried to integrate its schools by making them better than the suburban districts where many kids were moving. The result was one school with an Olympic-sized swimming pool and another with recording studios.Now it's on the brink of bankruptcy and considering another bold move: closing nearly half its schools to stay afloat.
Schools officials say the cuts are necessary to keep the district from plowing through what little is left of the $2 billion it received as part of a groundbreaking desegregation case.
Buffeted for years by declining enrollment, political squabbling and a revolving door of leadership, the district's fortunes are so bleak that Superintendent John Covington has said diplomas given to many graduates "aren't worth the paper they're printed on."
Kansas City is among the most striking examples of the challenges of saving urban school districts. The city used gobs of cash to improve facilities, but boosting lagging test scores and stemming the exodus of students were more elusive. Like other big-city districts, it finds itself struggling to become more than just the last resort for large pockets of poverty in the urban core.
Who could have told you that? One of those double digit IQ conservatives that's who.
What's so "progressive" about bankrupt schools?
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