By The Editors

In ironic contrast to the election of our first black president of mixed heritage, a recent report suggests that U.S. schools are becoming more – not less – racially segregated.

White students are more removed from black and Latino students than at any time since the civil rights movement, partly because the percentage of white students has shrunk to the point where they make up 56 percent of the school population.

“American schools in the recently released enrollment data from the 2006-2007 school year continued declines in the proportion of white students, increases in minority growth, particularly of Latino and Asian students, and deepening segregation of both blacks and Latinos by race and poverty,” according to the report, titled “Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century Challenge,” from the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles.

These new trends are “the result of a systematic neglect of civil rights policy and related educational and community reforms for decades,” explained Gary Orfield, Co-Director of The Civil Rights Project and author of the report, in a Jan. 14 story on Reuters.com. “It would be a tragedy if the country assumed from the Obama election that the problems of race have been solved, when many inequalities are actually deepening,” Orfield added.

The report said that the Southern and Western states have made better progress in desegregating schools than other reasons, due in part to growing immigration which has led to greater cultural and linguistic diversity.

According to the article, “U.S. Public Schools Step Backward on Segregation,” from the January 29 issue of The Bay Street Banner in Boston, “The report also found that many students, especially blacks and Latinos, face a sort of ‘double segregation’ when students’ family income is taken into account.”

View the full report “Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century Challenge”

Read “U.S. Public Schools Step Backward on Segregation” from The Bay Street Banner

Read “U.S. School Segregation on the Rise” from Reuters