Schools all around the St. Louis area became desegregated in 1954 after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. This decision made it illegal to separate children into schools based on skin color and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." In response to this, St. Louis started the longest running desegregation program in the country.

During the early 1980s, the desegregation program was finally implemented and children from the city were bused in to predominantly white schools. The goal of every county school in the program was to raise its black student population by at least 15 percent or reach a student population that was 25 percent black. And this plan worked. Children that lived in the city were now given as equal an opportunity at a great education as those in the county. Not only this, but adding diversity to the student population created tolerant, young minds. Because this desegregation program would bus in children as young as kindergarten age, children grew up in a diverse environment and learned to be accepting of all races, an important skill that they will carry with them throughout the rest of their lives.

Then, this past June, it was announced that the desegregation program would be renewed, or more simply put, phased out. Starting in 2019, children will be ineligible for school in the county unless they already have a sibling enrolled there. In all articles published no particulars were cited for this sudden phase out, only claims that “it is a legal requirement that the program eventually end,” according to David Glaser, executive director of the Voluntary Inter-district Choice Corporation, which oversees city-county transfers.

The motive of this phase out is unclear, but somehow it feels as if history is repeating itself. And while this time school officials in the county are not blatantly separating children because of their skin color, by ending this program, they are doing just that. A child is a child, and all children deserve proper education.

That brings us to a much bigger issue, which is why is there such a discrepancy in city and county public schools in the first place: funding. Public schools in Missouri are funded by the property taxes of the surrounding school district. So, in populated wealthy areas like Chesterfield, for example, the property taxes of the surrounding homes provide ample funding for their schools. This funding provides better learning tools, technology and pay to the teachers and administrators of the school. In contrast, in the city, where less properties exist, less property taxes are being absorbed into the schools, which makes them sub par.

I first read about the phase out of desegregation as I sat next to my boyfriend, a graduate of my high school who had been bused into the county since he was six years old, and whom I would've never met had there never been this program in the first place. Not only that, but some of my very best friends growing up were part of this desegregation program, and they shaped me to be who I am today. It saddens me to think that young children will not grow up alongside children of different backgrounds like I did.

Tashaun Ewing, my childhood friend who has been bused to the county since he was in second grade, believes the city should “reallocate the money back into inter-city schools” to begin to better the city schools, so that busing isn’t even necessary in the first place. Unfortunately, it seems as if no action is taking place to reform the current education funding around the St. Louis area.

I believe in the equal opportunity to a fair education for everyone, and ending the desegregation program is doing just the opposite. Ending this program will hinder the futures of countless children while also hindering the diversity of county schools. Action needs to take place on one issue or the other -- funding or desegregation. Either continue to bus children to county schools or increase funding for city schools, but phasing out the desegregation program is not the answer. If educators really had the best interest of children in mind, this wouldn't be happening.