Historical Background

Although state-sanctioned segregation was declared inherently unequal back in 1954 (landmark Supreme Court ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education), the real push to desegregate St. Louis schools did not occur until 1972. That was when Minnie Liddell and other parents charged that the city schools were still segregated despite the Brown decision.

The case was argued until 1975 when a consent decree was reached which established magnet schools in the city and called for teacher transfers and the realignment of some school attendance boundaries within the city of St. Louis.

The consent decree was deemed an insufficient remedy by the plaintiffs who filed an appeal with the U.S. District Court. The case was reopened and the suit continued, becoming more complex with the addition of suburban school districts as defendants.

The first step toward resolution of the case came in 1980 when the Court of Appeals ordered that 7,500 students be transferred within the city (intradistrict plan). In 1981, the Court also directed that a voluntary interdistrict plan be worked out between the city and the county and a pilot program with six school districts began. In 1983, a Settlement Agreement was reached with all school districts in the metropolitan area after intensive negotiations by all parties. This settlement included several components, perhaps the most visible being the interdistrict plan—a voluntary program involving the transfer of city students into suburban districts and suburban students into magnet schools in the city. Since the program was voluntary, there was no set ending date specified in the Settlement Agreement and student transfers have continued to the present.

In March 1996, following a three-week hearing in U.S. District Court to determine if the St. Louis Public Schools had achieved "unitary" status, a settlement coordinator was appointed to work with all parties in the case to reach an agreed-upon plan for ending the court supervision of the St. Louis metropolitan desegregation case. To support and facilitate the settlement negotiations, the Missouri Legislature, during its 1997-98 session, developed a plan in the form of Senate Bill 781 to offset the St. Louis Public Schools potential loss of court-ordered state funding while continuing desegregation efforts with a long-term funding remedy that would also benefit other school districts across the state. Senate Bill 781 was signed into law in August, 1998, and its funding was contingent upon a settlement of the desegregation lawsuit and the passage of a local sales tax increase.

On January 6, 1999, all parties to the lawsuit announced that an agreement had been reached which would provide for continuation of the most successful components of the 1983 Settlement Agreement — specifically, the voluntary transfer program and the St. Louis Magnet Schools.  This 1999 Settlement Agreement was contingent on the provision of certain funding sources, both locally and at the state level.

With the approval of a 2/3rds of a cent sales tax increase by St. Louis city voters on February 2, and court approval of the 1999 Settlement Agreement on March 15, the Voluntary Interdistrict Coordinating Council (VICC) became a non-profit corporation, re-named the Voluntary Interdistrict Choice Corporation (VICC), responsible for running all aspects of the voluntary student transfer program. No longer funded by incremental court-ordered state payments, the voluntary transfer program continues, now governed by superintendents of the participating districts and funded through the same state funding mechanisms as all other public schools in Missouri. 

Along with the organizational changes, the major programmatic change has been the establishment of four attendance areas in the city linked with specific suburban school districts. VICC only provides transportation to students complying with this attendance area structure.  Students applying to attend schools outside of their residential attendance area must provide their own transportation.  The new Settlement Agreement also provides that new students may continue to be accepted through the 2008-2009 school year and will be assigned according to their attendance area.

Considered by many to be the most generous and long-lasting settlement of any desegregation lawsuit, the St. Louis Student Transfer Program remains the largest and most successful public school choice program in the country.

• Since its inception, about 60,000 have chosen to participate for a period of their education, gaining exposure to an integrated education with people of different cultures and backgrounds. (Currently, about 10,000 African-American city students have made a voluntary choice to attend schools in St. Louis county. More than 500 county students now attend St. Louis public schools.)

• A growing number of children are graduating from this program (to date over 6,000) and attending a broad array of post-secondary institutions, more so than those who choose not to participate.

• Responses to a survey of 1998 city-to-county transfer graduates indicate a two or four-year college attendance rate of 77 percent — one which is significantly above the state-wide average of 47 percent for minority students, and which exceeds the St. Louis county-wide rate of 73.2 percent for students of all races. An additional 12.6 percent of those graduates indicated plans to attend a vocational or trade school, for a total of 89.7 percent who will be continuing their education.

• Data indicate that the students who are transferring persist to graduation at a rate almost twice as high as those who do not (49 percent versus 27 percent—same students from 9th through 12th grade in same schools over four-year period.)

• Interest in the transfer program continues to be great, with a continuing high number of applications from new students being submitted to the VICC.

• Research indicates that students who have had a desegregated experience are more likely to have positive racial attitudes and success in integrated environments throughout their lives. (Robert L. Crain)

• Through 2003-2004, districts were paid at their respective tuition rates for each transfer student. Starting in 2004-2005, however, projections indicate annual tuition payments will be capped at about $7,000 per student.

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