This is a curious decision. A federal appeals court ruled that sales taxes intended to fund desegregation programs in the St. Louis public schools must be shared with charter schools, but the charter schools are not required to use the money for desegregation programs.
ST. LOUIS — Charter schools are entitled to sales tax dollars that were intended for desegregation programs in St. Louis Public Schools, according to an appeals court ruling Thursday.
The ruling from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals follows a 50-year-old school desegregation lawsuit that resulted in a settlement in 1999. As part of the settlement, SLPS received a portion of a special sales tax to fund desegregation programs including full-day kindergarten, magnet schools and busing students to county districts.
The first charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run, opened in St. Louis in 2000. A change to the state’s education funding formula in 2006 has diverted more than $50 million from SLPS to charter schools, district lawyers argued.
The school district filed a motion in 2016 seeking to force the state to send all the sales tax revenue to SLPS. A federal judge ruled in favor of the state in 2020, as long as charter schools were offering desegregation programs. The district appealed, leading to Thursday’s decision, which also removed charter schools’ requirement to use the tax dollars for desegregation programs.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A hidden agenda behind privatization is to blur the lines between public and private entities. How many times have we heard the expression “public charter schools,” even though they are owned and operated by private vendors? When privatization becomes normalized, it becomes easier for politicians to divert public funds to favored private parties while the public is on the hook to underwrite the private profit. Unfortunately, privatization generally costs more for a worse service, but the public is often none the wiser. Privatization is a scam!
The lobby for charter schools calls itsel “the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.” The charters always call themselves “public,” because it helps them make demands for more money and the facade of credibility.
This story probably isn’t over yet. Rulings from federal circuit courts may be appealed to the US Supreme Court.