Last Monday, the nation celebrated a holiday created to acknowledge one man’s influence, one man’s dream.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” address to over 200,000 civil rights supporters 46 years ago at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

It’s almost five decades later, but has Dr. King’s dream since been realized? Would he be happy with the progress, especially with our schools and how we’re raising our children, thus far? If he were to visit Kansas City public schools today, would he like what he sees?

The United States has seen significant progress since Dr. King’s times. Schools, places of employment, and other public places are no longer legally segregated. African Americans and other minorities are now expected to be given the same rights and respect as white people.

This progress, according to Dr. Karen Dace, Deputy Chancellor of Diversity at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, became evident with the inauguration of Barack Obama.

“We have our first African American president,” Dace said. “I never thought I’d see that in my lifetime. But the real test is if we’ll have other marginalized members of society in office. Then we’ll know if we’ve arrived.”

According to Mr. G.L. Blankinship, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Greater Kansas City Black Community Fund, much more progress needs to be made, as many inequalities still exist among African Americans today.

“When there is a significant disparity between the black community or any subset of the population, and the general population…[then] improvement is needed,” Blankinship said. “There are many social ills, many caused by equality issues and some with other root causes that cannot be ignored. Unemployment, underemployment, black-on-black crime, incarceration, teen pregnancies, drop-out rates, health disparities…”

Dr. Dace also agrees that, despite the country’s advancements, certain areas, education in particular, need improvement.

“America invests more in prisons than in education,” Dace said. “But wouldn’t it be great if it were the opposite?”

According to both Blankinship and Dace, the Kansas City, Missouri public school system is extremely troubled. The public school system, Dace said, must be improved in order for King’s dream to come closer to being realized. Though Dr. King’s battle for desegregation and integration in schools was fought nearly 50 years ago, segregation still exists today, to some extent. The divisor, said Dace, is state line.

“[Missouri] drop out rates for students black and brown are alarming,” Dace said.

While the dropout rate for African Americans in the Shawnee Mission, Kansas School district was two percent in 2005, the dropout rate for African Americans in the Kansas City, Missouri public school system in 2008 was 20 percent, according to the 2008 School Accountability Report. The total dropout rate at STA is even lower than that of the Shawnee Mission district, according to Principal of Student Affairs, Mary Anne Hoecker.

While most Kansas schools meet virtually every standard, Missouri schools are considered to be in a troubled state, Hoecker said.

“I hate to put [the Kansas City, Missouri school district] down, but if you believe what you read, then they’re in trouble,” Hoecker said. “But Shawnee Mission has a great reputation. Blue Valley has a great reputation. Why is that? That’s a good question to ask.”

Dace says that many parents have simply abandoned the Kansas City, Missouri school district as a suitable place to send their children to be educated.

“So many people have given up on the public school system,” Dace said. “So many have moved to the Kansas side, and some parents, who can afford it, send their students to private schools.”

For those parents who can’t afford to send their children to private school, they must resort to sending their children to the troubled public schools in Missouri. STA has new scholarships, to be given to those who are not able to afford the $9,300 annual tuition, according to Hoecker.

“We want more diversity,” Hoecker said. “But for some people, the price of a private school is expensive, and not everyone can afford it. [Therefore] we have increased scholarships given to diverse students.”

According to Hoecker, the STA administration created a diversity committee last year to encourage a diverse faculty and student body. One of the committee’s accomplishments has been the creation of two new scholarships to award to students of color. According to Hoecker, the diversity committee, chaired by president Nan Bone, was created due to the decrease in the rate of minority students enrolling at STA.

“[Diversity] is down from where it was 10 years ago, when it was at about 21 percent,” Hoecker said. Today, STA’s diversity rate is 14 percent. “The numbers went down from five or six years ago. So with the two scholarships, our intention is to help people be able to come here.”

Efforts like these are important for the advancement of society, Dace says.

“We haven’t reached post-racial America yet,” Dace said. “Some of us have become concerned with individual success and not the success of our community. But we have to start thinking again like, if my brother’s not successful, I’m not either.”

Blankinship agrees that it is not appropriate for us to assume that we have arrived to the ideal dream that Dr. King imagined, when there is still much more progress needed.

“I think Dr. King’s dream is much, much closer to realization than in 1968 when he died, and we can all cite several obvious specifics,” Blankinship said. “I think our challenge however is to not let the meaningful progress in our journey make us think we have reached the destination… We are ahead of where we were, but behind where we would like to be.”