RULING ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION : Court Deals Blow to School Desegregation Rules : Education: Justices say low achievement levels of minority schools don’t justify long-term judicial control.

For the third time in four years, the Supreme Court moved to end a long-running school desegregation program, ruling Monday that low achievement levels among minority students are not reason enough to continue judicial oversight of school districts.

The 5-4 decision could end a Kansas City program that has operated under court order since 1977.

Taken together, the three rulings make clear that the justices are willing to end desegregation programs even if black students remain isolated from whites and attend city schools where achievement is low.

The Supreme Court has been backing away from school desegregation rulings for some time. Nonetheless, more than 500 school districts remain under the control of federal judges who oversee some aspect of a desegregation decree.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist in particular has questioned the basis for this long-term judicial control, and on Monday, he wrote a 32-page opinion taking to task the federal judge who has overseen the Kansas City schools for 18 years.

Judge Russell Clark, the presiding judge, “must bear in mind that [the] end purpose is not only to remedy the violation to the extent practicable, but also to restore state and local authorities to the control of the school system.”

Missouri officials say they have spent $1.3 billion complying with Clark’s order to upgrade the city schools, partly in hopes that more attractive buildings and classrooms would attract suburban whites. Since 1987, the judge has ordered the building of 17 new schools, raised the salaries of teachers and aides, and refused to step aside until the city’s students reach the national average on standardized tests.

The breadth of the ruling is not clear. Attorneys on both sides of the cases conceded that the Kansas City case was one of a kind. Not only had Clark gone further than any jurist in ordering school improvements, he stood virtually alone in demanding that the program continue until test scores had risen to their “maximum potential.”

Rehnquist, speaking for the majority, said Clark’s broad orders “are beyond the District Court’s remedial authority.” While the judge can take steps to integrate black and white students within Kansas City, he does not have the authority to order an expensive program of improvements, the chief justice said, especially on the theory that these better facilities will attract suburban students.

Rehnquist also disputed the use of test scores as a basis for deciding whether to end the desegregation plan. “This clearly is not an appropriate test to be applied in deciding whether a previously segregated district has achieved” compliance with the law, he wrote.

Judges can demand that school officials not perpetuate the segregation of their students, but their performance in the classroom cannot be the basis for deciding whether they have met that goal, he said in the case (Missouri vs. Jenkins, 93-1823).

Four years ago, Rehnquist wrote an opinion in an Oklahoma City case insisting that a desegregation decree is a “temporary measure.” It should end once school officials have basically complied with a court order, he said.

Two years ago, the justices overturned a court order in DeKalb County, Ga., and said that a student desegregation order can be called off even if the district has failed to achieve adequate integration of its faculty.

In the Kansas City case, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a strong concurring opinion in which he wondered why the Kansas City schools should be deemed inadequate simply because few whites are enrolled. “It never ceases to amaze me that the courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior,” he wrote.

The 5-4 division on the court was identical to the split in the affirmative case also decided Monday, with Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy joining in the majority.

Speaking for the dissenters, Justice David H. Souter faulted the chief justice for writing a broad opinion attacking the desegregation order when the appeal originally raised a more narrow issue. The court’s willingness to reach out and broadly attack Clark’s handling of the case “rules out any confidence that today’s result is sound, either in fact or in law,” Souter said. He was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

The Kansas City case began in 1977 when black parents sued, contending their children were being denied equal educational opportunities by a school system that had a history of segregation. Beginning in 1984, Judge Clark ordered a series of improvements, including the creation of magnet schools and voluntary transfers between city and suburban pupils. He also ordered the state of Missouri to pay half of the added cost.