Still separate and unequal

STILL SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL: Since the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, segregation of schools in America is de jure illegal. But America's schools are de facto separate and unequal, especially if one compares mostly white suburban schools with inner-city schools largely populated by minorities.

Take Illinois: in the suburbs north of Chicago, largely white school systems spent from $10,627 to $17,291 per student in 2002-2003, whereas the Chicago city schools spent only $8,482 per student (review of Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation in the Chicago Tribune, September 11).

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