The Pacific News Service has a story that summarizes new research from Harvard University showing that contrary to popular beliefs, (1) despite decades of school desegregation efforts, many public schools remain highly racially segregated and (2) the Northeast and West -- not the South -- are the regions most likely to have segregated schools:

In California, 87 percent of the non-white students attend schools that are majority minority, and in New York, it’s 86 percent. Further down the list, Mississippi has 77 percent; Georgia has 73 percent, and Alabama has 70 percent of minority students attending majority minority schools. . . .

More than three quarters of intensely segregated schools are also high poverty schools. Despite an increase in diversity, white students remain the most isolated group. Since the 1990s, the percentage of students of every race in multiracial groups has increased. Segregation is no longer black and white but increasingly multiracial. . . .

Nationally, Asians are more likely than students of other races to attend multiracial schools. Conversely, white students are the least likely to attend these schools.

The article emphasizes that although race continues to be a strong factor in affecting school segregation, increasingly, social class is emerging as another significant factor that accounts for much of the separation. In other words, the most segregated schools also tend to be the poorest whereas the most integrated schools tend to be more financially well-off.

In other words, not only are we seeing the continuation of racial segregation in American society, but increasingly, it’s combined with economic segregation as the gap between the poor and working class on the one hand, and the affluent on the other hand, continues to widen, with the middle class increasingly getting squeezed out into one side or the other.

Unfortunately, it looks like true equality is still a long ways off in American society.