A few days ago I was accosted by a friend who said, "I hear they've closed the schools in Kansas City."

I had missed the story, but nothing you could tell me about my hometown school district could surprise me. It has been in varying states of chaos as far back as I can remember, which is pretty far back; nonetheless, I wondered if the current economic climate had brought down the final curtain. It has not; it has, in fact, brought a new level of rationality.

Kansas City is a geographically quirky spot. In the first place, it is in Missouri, something many people refuse to understand. (There is also a much smaller Kansas City, Kansas, across the river, just to confuse you.) Beyond that, the metro area encompasses two states, five counties and 50-odd municipalities. As you can imagine, this makes for political mayhem, and what is more political than schools?

Kansas City, Mo., was the original settlement, and remains at the heart of the metro. Like most old Midwestern cities, it has a history of segregation, including the school system. Also like most Midwestern cities - like most American cities, in fact - it experienced a postwar flight to suburbia, driven by all the well-known demographic and economic factors, and also, if the hard truth is told, by the avoidance of integrated schools as mandated by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

As in many other places, however, de facto segregation continued for years because students were assigned to neighborhood schools, and neighborhoods remained segregated. Meanwhile the newly formed suburban towns, many in another state or different county, remained essentially all-white, relieving residents of any possible concern about integration.

In 1970, there began a decade-long series of lawsuits brought by a local attorney to require integration by busing throughout the Kansas City School District. By the time this legal debacle ended, the district was under the personal management of a federal judge in Springfield, Mo., 180 miles away.

In addition to busing, he ordered $2 billion worth of capital improvements to the district and made sure that every penny was spent. This resulted in Olympic swimming pools, fencing studios (the kind with swords) and inner-city French academies, as well as the remodeling and air-conditioning of virtually every school. The idea was to make these schools so attractive that white parents would want their children to go there.

The only thing unaffected was the quality of instruction. Property taxes in the city increased by as much as 500 percent. None of this worked. Enrollment continued to drop as blacks left the inner city, charter schools opened, and eight schools were handed off to the adjacent Independence, Mo., district.

In the past six years, enrollment dropped from 34,000 students to 18,000, even as parents continued the usual litany about keeping their child's school open. The position of district superintendent has become a revolving door.

Reality has arrived. What actually happened last week was that the district announced that next year it will close 26 of 61 schools and eliminate 700 of 3,300 jobs, including 285 teachers, in an effort to eliminate its annual $50 million deficit.

This was accomplished by a 3-2 vote of the school board, and three seats are up for election before the new school year begins. This is not a done deal, and the sides are choosing up.

Kansas City's is the most mismanaged school system that I know of, though I'm sure residents of some other cities might want to argue the point. It is the perfect example of what happens when a social end becomes more important than educating children.

I am not attempting to make a case for segregation; I would argue that the way to end it forever is not on a bus or in an Olympic pool, but in a well-structured classroom with a good teacher. Give the kids a chance.

As long as the Kansas City district has proven that mere money and mandates are not a certain path to anything, the country ought to learn something from its sacrifice.

Fred Wolferman lives in Southern Pines. Contact him by e-mail at fwolferman@sbcglobal.net.