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TUSD has been operating under a federal desegregation court order since 1978 — so long that two generations of students have grown up living with its effects. The end of that era is close and the coming change leaves the Tucson Unified School District with crucial decisions on how to improve education for all students.

U.S. District Judge David C. Bury last week issued an interim order that leaves no question about his desire to close the desegregation case that's been a boon and a headache to the Tucson Unified School District and families whose lives have been shaped by the court order.

The court order has meant about $800 million from taxpayers to pay for TUSD's desegregation efforts. That money has paid for more teachers at some schools, for ethnic-studies departments, for magnet programs designed to attract kids from across the district to specific schools.

These expenses are an important part of TUSD and should continue. Magnet programs can continue on a lottery system, for example, and all students should benefit.

The desegregation order directly affected the lives of thousands of TUSD kids as they were bused out of their neighborhoods to schools across the district to affect the racial balance of particular schools. The system in place to fix racial inequalities and segregation in TUSD over time became a framework that kept students from opportunities others had, because of their race.

In the heavily Hispanic neighborhood east of Kino and 36th Street, students who finish at Pueblo Gardens Elementary would, geographically, go to nearby Utterback Middle School. But instead, they're bused across town to other middle schools while Anglo students are allowed in to Utterback's magnet fine-arts program.

A charter school, Southside Community School, saw an opportunity and opened a school for parents who wanted to keep their children in the neighborhood.

Bury ruled that a U.S. Supreme Court decision from June that prohibits school districts from including race in making student enrollment decisions does, despite TUSD's arguments, apply to Tucson's largest district. This change outlaws TUSD's enrollment policy, which uses race and ethnicity to decide whether to allow students to attend schools outside their neighborhoods.

Bury wants to know from TUSD how it has met the obligations of the desegregation order and how it will move forward. The parents and taxpayers of TUSD are anxious for the same answers.

When the time comes to end the desegregation order and declare that TUSD has reached "unitary status," that it's no longer separated, TUSD will have the difficult but necessary task of ensuring that the benefits the court order and extra funding over the decades are felt by all students.