Entangled in expansion

Published in the Columbia Missourian

On the wall above the kitchen counter in Jim and Helen Judah's house is a 30-year-old aerial photograph of their property. Open fields and clustered treetops dominate the scene. Taken today, the photograph would look very different.

At the northwest edge of their property, middle-class houses in the Georgetown subdivision spring up from the fields. Nearer the Judahs' house, across Gillespie Bridge Road, residents of the Longview subdivision mow lawns in front of their duplexes. And although a proposal to rezone the land just downhill from the Judahs' lagoon was rejected a couple of years ago, the possibility remains for subdivisions to creep closer.

Southwest and northeast of Columbia, land like the Judahs' is under pressure from the expanding city. As the city's population grows, homes and land to build them on are in high demand.

Many northeastern landowners seem ready to sell their properties. But in the southwest, few landowners say they are interested in selling despite the money they could make.

Meanwhile, shops and houses are going up all along the perimeter of the Columbia, wherever land can be bought and developed. Growth to the southwest of the city has been curtailed, however, because holdouts in that area own more than 3,000 acres of development-ready land.

But even in the southwest, residents' lives are changing because of Columbia's growth. Civilization is banging on the door. Roads bring more traffic; zoning and subsequent building alter the views from people's homes.

To sell or not to sell
Jim Judah says he knows all about selling land. The family farm on which he was born was sold and became tract housing. Three years ago, he and his wife, Helen, sold a 320-acre parcel on Coats Lane. The new owner isn't a developer, and the Judahs rent the land from the new owner to produce hay. Jim says this is the only way they can support 110 cattle on the 175 acres they have left.

What of that last 175 acres?

"We're not going to sell," he says.

The Judahs are holding on, even without much help. One of their two part-time farmhands is unable to walk, but drives a tractor. The other helps in the afternoons. Jim does the morning and evening feeding alone.

Land prices and the production costs make farming for a living difficult - even for longtime family farmers such as the Judahs.

Surrounded by growing developments and "hobby farmers," Jim and Helen live on their investments. "It has cut farming clear out," Jim says.

Over on South Coats Lane, John Sam Williamson says he too worries about the development happening nearby. He says he is watching valuable soybean fields turn into grassy lawns for subdivisions.

"This land is all zoned agricultural," Williamson says. "As we have urbanization of the area, because of the growth of Columbia and outside areas, this land has changed from agricultural to residential."

State, city and county governments are also developing land. Near Williamson's house, the land is river bottom and flood plain and is unsuitable for residential development. The city of Columbia has 10 wells and three sewage treatment sites, with a fourth in the works. The Missouri Department of Conservation owns the nearby Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area.

Williamson says he has had several offers to buy his land, but he has turned them down. "At some point I probably will, because it would be stupid not to. I'm under pressure, but I'm not letting it bother me."

Williamson, who is president of the McBaine Levee district board, owns 1,400 acres of Missouri River flood plain. He says he maintains the fences at the edge of his land because neighboring developers didn't want to build them.

Florea, who owns 430 acres on Coats Lane, says he has had no purchase offers, but he is wary about the idea of selling: "Anywhere within 20 or 30 miles of Columbia, you want to be careful offering your land for a price, because someone might take you up on it."

His son and daughter-in-law also live on Florea's land. He says he doesn't plan to sell.

These landowners recognize that they are still part of the community. They can't just hold onto their land, blind to issues of expansion. Their own quality of life, land use patterns and financial security are in question. Like everyone else, when they talk about the future, they talk about zoning, roads and sewage management. These, they say, need to be addressed no matter what.

Florea, for example, is always present at county meetings. He and other farmers go to make their opinions heard and to keep the county mindful of obligations to its citizens.

Two sides of the coin
County land wasn't always governed by zoning ordinances. Now, however, land is zoned several different ways, says Stan Shawver, director of county planning and building inspection.

That is both good and bad, farmers say. The Boone County Planning and Zoning Commission is helping control expansion by preventing landowners from doing whatever they want. The Judahs, for example, now have to get a permit if they want to build even a shed on their land. Folks no longer can "just go out and put a trailer up," Jim Judah says.

The city's southern expansion over the past 30 years has also brought mixed results, Williamson says. Besides more crime and traffic, there is a lag between support and growth: "The infrastructure has not kept up with the development in this area," he says. Old roads carrying new traffic, for example, are a problem.

Florea says the city should improve its road maintenance. He says that during the 1993 flood, a bridge on Coats Lane was under eight feet of water. Ten families had to use rowboats to cross between their homes and their cars parked on the other side of the bridge.

The county is finishing a five-year program to upgrade roads. The half-percent sales tax extended in November will sustain the project for an additional 10 years. But residents say it is hard to know where the next improvements will be made.

When Jim Judah moved to his land in 1944, four miles of gravel road led from there to the Columbia town line. Now, cars back up on the blacktop in front of his home every day during rush hour. "I don't even go to the mailbox without having to wait for the traffic," Helen says. On the other hand, Jim says, the paved road is more driver-friendly.

Florea says the county could influence where development occurs with its road-paving plans. While the county can't force developers into particular areas, a blacktopped road is certainly more attractive for development than a gravel one.

"The concentration of higher-cost housing is along improved roads," Shawver says. But the impact of the five-year road-paving project has yet to increase development rates significantly, he says. "At this point we haven't seen a lot of that. Development takes a long time."

Jim Judah says he is used to managing the waste from both his household and his farm animals. Now, however, the city's waste also is being treated near his home.

City sewer standards are strict, and new subdivisions are required to comply. But because the city requires annexation before extending privileges to residents, most current owners have either a septic tank or a sewage lagoon. However, Boone County's primary soil contains a lot of clay, and this prevents septic tanks from percolating properly, Williamson says.

Lagoons smell bad, and neighbors can see the waste. Some houses use combination systems, such as septic tanks piping effluent to secondary treatment plants.

The city sewer plant near the Judahs' place is built on land the Judahs used to own. The city used its power of condemnation to buy the land, Helen says.

The fourth sewage-treatment wetland to be created will use part of a 100-acre parcel that Florea sold the city last year. He is concerned about the possibility of odor.

Florea says he doesn't notice any odors from the existing wetlands, but his house is a quarter-mile upwind of those areas. The new treatment wetland might be closer to his home.

The city's impact has not been entirely negative, residents say. After the 1993 floods, the city helped river-bottom landowners organize levee maintenance. And Florea says he appreciated the city's helping residents form a levee district: "They've been a prime mover on that since the word go."

The future
"The city's really changing," Williamson says. "It hurts me to see the change, because this is my heritage. This has been agricultural land for generations. People are selling it. But you can't blame them for doing it."

He is quick to add that these kinds of changes are happening not just in Boone County, but all around the country.

"There's no more agricultural land being made. It's all that we're ever going to have," he says.
Even Earth City, a St. Louis suburb, used to be an agricultural area of river-bottom farmland, he says. Now it has hotels, factories and warehouses.

As the world's population increases, the demand for food grows. The United States is the most efficient producer of agricultural products, Williamson says, adding that other countries don't have the same combination of infrastructure, know-how and technology.

"I'm not going to be like Don Quixote, out fighting windmills," Williamson says. "There's just one thing after another, and it's not going to end - it's going to be more."

At a recent meeting about the county budget, Florea was the only resident in attendance. "I've tried to be very active in influencing (the commission) - not with a very high degree of success," he says. "I keep nipping at their heels."

Florea says his main concern is that the county is spending too much money on construction of roads and too little on their maintenance. But bad government, he says, is the fault of citizens who don't participate. The opportunity is there, he says, even for a farmer who still loves his independence: "What do you lose by trying?"

Instilling knowledge

Published in the Columbia Missourian

Think back to when you were in school. Chances are, your teacher had a list of assignments to get through in a given year. Those that didn't get covered were left for the following year or skipped altogether. That's all very different now.

School districts now use academic standards to design effective curriculum for science education. The result is teachers have more focus in the classroom and students benefit from improved continuity.

State and federal funding sources require school districts to adhere to their recommendations yet they each have different guidelines.

Competing for district attention are the national standards, backed by the U.S. Department of Education.

There are the Project 2061 standards put forward by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. And there are the Show-Me Standards, designed by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and mandated by the state legislature.

They are similar. They all have the goal of improving K-12 science education. They all split curriculum levels the same way: K-4, 5-8 and 9-12. They all stipulate that science education is vital preparation for the world beyond academics. They all cover similar topics somewhere in the curriculum.

The problem for the school district comes in assessment. While the state's goals for learning are to be achieved by the fourth, eighth and 12th grades, the tests are administered in third, seventh and 10th grades.

For example, the third-grade test asks students about food chains and food webs. In Columbia, those subjects are taught in the fourth grade.

While in the primary grades, this forces teachers to cram an extra year of science learning into the K-3 years. Those are years when literacy education is vital. There is not enough time for both, said Becky Litherland, district coordinator of science education.

In the middle grades, the state of Missouri requires the teaching of genetics and natural selection in seventh grade - a subject difficult even for high-school sophomores, Litherland said.

In high school, teachers are left with two years to fill after the final state assessment. Subject matter originally intended for those years is tested before it is ever taught.

The competing sets of guidelines, together with the state-mandated assessment schedule, give Columbia schools some hard choices and, Litherland said: "Local control is costing us more of our education dollars."

Curriculum development has been an ongoing process far longer than government standards have been in place. "We have been changing the science curriculum for 14 years," Litherland said.

It's only in the past two years that she has been working with the national standards to create a Columbia curriculum unique to the district.

Gentry Middle School teacher Laura Jackson helped design the national standards for K-12 science education. Litherland said there is "a real sense of pride" with the local connection, and the local district tends to favor that system over the others.

The national standards, she said, are the result of years of hard work by some of the nation's best science educators and their recommendations make sense to her when others do not.

Teachers are, on their own, doing very good assessment of student performance. They have left behind the multiple-choice tests used for years, but the district's teachers are stuck. They want to teach well. They also want students to do well on tests which adhere to the state standards.

"It's hard to sell at the local level," Litherland said. "You're sitting there with a bunch of teachers and they say, 'Give me what's going to be on the test.'"

One particular national standard of importance to Litherland is "science as inquiry." It used to be called "designing and doing experiments." In Columbia, these experiments are integrated into classes where possible, giving students experience in exploring science for themselves.

A big difference now is the concept of the science fair. In the past, a student may have been told to do a science fair project without much additional help. Now students learn how to think about experiments, how to build them and how to interpret results. It's working. Columbia schools win Missouri Science Olympiad awards year after year.

Although Litherland said she believes standards renew the commitment to teaching excellence, she said she fears that the state testing system asks too much of students too early. She said she isn't happy with the current timetable.

When the state was planning education schedules, Litherland and other science educators asked the department of education to schedule science testing in fourth, eighth and 11th grades.

As all of the state's standards and assessment guidelines are developed, there will be too many tests to have all of them in any one year. The state decided to split testing between third and fourth grades, seventh and eighth grades, and 10th and 11th grades.

Science testing was the second standard implemented in Missouri, which should have given it free choice in the timetable, Litherland said, yet the state decided against the educators' request.

This spring, the first state tests will be administered. Litherland is hopeful but not optimistic. "I think our scores are probably going to be pretty poor," she said. "Our kids aren't going to do as well as I think they could because of this misalignment."

She explained the scores do not measure the quality of science education in Columbia, but merely Columbia's adherence to the state-set curricular time table. In this world of change, though, the legislators are the only people who can help Litherland ease the transition.

The people who set the standards often have a poor grasp of early childhood education, she said. That means they don't understand how much growing and changing occurs from year to year. They don't see the trade-off in primary grades between time spent on science and on literacy education.

"I hope that we'll be able to have good test scores without sacrificing our children," she said. "I want kids to come out of our elementary schools loving science, being successful at science."