Judy: Schools across the country
are getting much needed upgrades
thanks to the covid relief
package known as the American
rescue plan.
That is true in Missouri where
the state legislature decided
how to allocate the federal
money just weeks before it was
set to expire.
Experts say fixing systemic
funding gaps in public education
will require long-term,
sustained investment.
Communities correspondent
Gabrielle Hayes has more from
St. Louis.
Reporter: 4th grade David
oliverires is one of 225
students at Pierre laclede
junior career academy, a pre-k
through 7th grade school on St.
Louis' west side.
Soon the classrooms he and his
teacher work in the halls they
, walked down, will see new
paint.
An improvement his dad, Cory
oliverires, says is long
overdue.
>> Funds don't seem to be or
appearing to be equally
dispersed throughout the saint
Louis area.
I mean, you can just look at our
schools, look at the schools on
this side of town.
Look at the schools on the other
side of town.
Reporter: Missouri schools, like
many across the country, heavily
rely on local funding sources
such as property taxes, to fund
public education.
In neighborhoods where property
values are lower, often
communities of color, schools
like laclede may not get as much
funding as those in wealthier
neighborhoods.
Missouri also ranks 49th in the
nation when it comes to state
funding for education according
to a state auditor report from
2021.
That lack of funding also
extends to teacher pay.
Missouri is home to the lowest
base salaries for teachers
across the country at $25,000 a
year.
However, both the state and St.
Louis public schools have
recently approved increases to
base salaries, that oliverires
says were desperately needed.
>> These teachers are here.
The teachers are very talented.
They're not getting paid for
what they're putting in.
I get emotional.
Excuse me.
Because I know how it is to be
behind.
It's a struggle to get caught
up.
Reporter: Kimberly Norwood is a
professor at Washington
university school of law in St.
Louis.
She says Missouri's lack of
education funding has historical
roots.
>> Missouri became a state in
1821, and shortly thereafter the
state enacted anti-literacy laws
that prevented blacks, whether
free or enslaved from reading or
writing.
Reporter: Though slavery was
abolished in 1865, the supreme
court decision plessy V.
Ferguson upheld state
segregation laws decades later.
Norwood says that the ruling's
separate but equal doctrine
meant schools were never really
equal.
>> So those black schools end up
being overcrowded.
They didn't have the resources.
They weren't given the money.
The teachers weren't paid the
same.
Reporter: Nearly 60 years later,
the landmark civil rights case
brown V. Board of education
overturned the plessy decision.
>> Missouri begins a process to
end segregated schools.
We haven't gotten there yet.
So it's 2022.
Reporter: For Norwood,
Missouri's current funding model
exacerbates the problem.
>> The amount of money that you
give for education is going to
depend on how much the property
values are in your district.
So it's a property rich,
property poor scenario.
>> It solidifies the cycle of
poverty.
Reporter: Pamela
westbrooks-hodge is a member of
the Missouri board of education
and after spending years working
in education and finance, she
says the current funding model
can have an impact on economic
mobility.
>> Because my housing values are
low, I don't have the
educational outcomes that
perhaps I should.
I'm not as prepared.
And so what are my career
opportunities?
Am I likely to go to college?
Reporter: Back at laclede,
principal Damaris white said her
students are still working
through barriers the pandemic
made worse.
>> It's like now we have to
catch up to where they are.
So in order to do that, it takes
funding.
We cannot educate our children
the way that they need to be
educated without funding.
Reporter: Missouri now has an
unprecedented $2 billion in
covid relief funds that will go,
for the most part, directly to
schools.
But after decades of
underfunding, districts are now
trying to figure out how to use
that money and how to fill in
gaps that existed before the
pandemic even started.
Schools are using the money to
help with everything from
addressing learning loss to
hiring mental health counselors.
St. Louis public schools
received 103 million dollars and
used what they call an equity
index to distribute the funds.
That process reviews things like
total enrollment and the number
of students on free and reduced
lunch.
Laclede is using the funds to
update their library and
cafeteria among other much
needed improvements.
>> New furniture in some of the
classrooms.
More field trips, more field
experiences for our students as
well.
Reporter: Students now have
iPads and their teachers stay
late for new after school
programs.
All things they didn't have
before.
All things principal white says
the extra covid relief money
made possible.
>> To be able to have a stem
lab, after school programming
for reading and math and those
interventions, and to have small
group and one on one with the
teachers has been it's just been
, great.
Reporter: While the covid relief
funds are a boon, that money
says Pamela westbrooks-hodge, is
, just a temporary fix to a
structural problem.
>> I think we keep putting
band-aids on the surface wounds
that we see.
But systems thinking says keep
peeling back the layers to
understand root cause.
And so that's why addressing
resourcing flows structurally,
to make them more equitable, to
send more dollars in where
they're needed on a sustained
basis is needed.
Reporter: For professor Norwood,
the question of equity is key.
Why do you think that this issue
continues to linger?
>> I think we talk that talk
about equity and equality, but
we don't really mean it.
And if it's not good enough for
your kid, it shouldn't be good
enough for mine.
Reporter: For Mr. Oliverires,
who's put four kids through St.
Lewis public schools, the future
of education is personal.
>> I had a child that came here
that I had to resign from a job
because of behavior problems.
They were so bad, I was here
three or four times a week.
Had I not, I don't know where
this child would be right now.
Reporter: Today, his son David
has dreams of being a movie star
and a basketball player, and his
daughter's tori's outlook on her
future has changed.
>> With the help of the staff
here, we were able to get her
through school, through
elementary school.
She's now interested in college.
She's made a turn around without
the staff here made that happen.
-- Without the staff here, it
would not have happened.
Reporter: It is those dreams Mr.
Oliverires says that fuel his
passion for advocating for
students and making sure they
have the tools they need to be
who they want to be.
For the "Pbs newshour", I'm