Race and education.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, universities like Tulane and Loyola certainly are in trouble (see later under "Budget Cuts"), but not nearly as traumatically as New Orleans' historically black universities, Xavier and Dillard. Without adequate insurance or large endowments (compare Tulane's $745 million endowment to the $50 million combined endowments for Xavier and Dillard), the recoveries of these private historically black universities will carry the same racial disparities as will the rest of New Orleans' recovery (The New York Times, September 25, 2005).

Studies are showing that if schools can be integrated economically; there is a far better chance of them being integrated racially. Even standardized reading and math test scores can make remarkable strides. For improvements in Wade County in Raleigh, North Carolina, see The New York Times, September 25, 2005. For improvements in Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Louisville, Kentucky, see "Overcoming Apartheid" (The Nation, December 19, 2005). According to the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, the four most segregated states for African American students remain New York, Michigan, Illinois, and California.

The children of Asian Americans, long considered the "model minority," are supposed to study hard, earn good grades, and advance socially. A new NYU study, however, shows that students of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao descent actually have a higher dropout rate than African American students. The Sino-American Community Center in Chinatown in New York says that many of the immigrants from Southeast Asia are of Chinese origin and, according to preliminary data, are far from excelling in school (Sing Tao Daily, September 5, 2005).