The new way to integrate: by income, not race. (Notebook: usable education information from schools, business, research and professional organizations).

School districts in Cambridge, Mass., and LaCrosse, Wis., are integrating. But the factor these districts will use to integrate is not race, but income.

Administrators in both districts say socioeconomic status--and not race--should be the basis of school integration programs. Administrators in San Francisco are considering the same approach to integration, according to several reports.

Research conducted in Cambridge reveals that a school's overall academic achievement is affected by students' socioeconomic backgrounds. Student achievement suffers in schools that enroll a high percentage of those receiving free or reduced lunch, according to Lenore Prueser, director of the Cambridge school district's Family Resource Center.

In Cambridge, 41 percent of all students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, yet the student bodies in some schools had about two of every three children coming from poorer households. Cambridge administrators find that students from lower socioeconomic levels perform better when the student body is mixed.

Administrators in LaCrosse, Wis., have come to the same conclusion, although Superintendent Thomas Downs admits that parents with high incomes have voiced objections to the latest phase in his plan to economically integrate the district. "There are political concerns," he says. "High income parents fear that bringing balance to the classroom will bring other problems. They fear that low-income students are off-task learners who will bring home-problems to school." Downs dismisses these concerns as "myths."

Student performance across the board has improved in LaCrosse schools that have already been integrated based on socioeconomic status, he says. The previous superintendent began this initiative in 1992. "Our test scores are higher in the balanced schools," Downs says. He now wants to better integrate two elementary schools in the poorer part of the district that continue to enroll a large percentage of those eligible for free or reduced lunch. At one school, 75 percent of students are from poorer households; at the other, 60 percent. Downs wants the range to be 25 percent to 50 percent.

In Cambridge, administrators are stretching socioeconomic integration over a three-year period, starting with the 2002-03 academic year. The 15 elementary schools will reflect a mix of students from various socioeconomic backgrounds. Race will still be a consideration in integration, but it will not be the primary factor.

These districts are taking the right approach, notes Richard Kahlenberg, senior fellow for Century Foundation, Washington, D.C., and author of All Together Now, a book about the benefits of integrating based on socioeconomic factors. "The single more important predictor of school performance--outside family influence--is socioeconomic status. Peers have significant influence on each other, he adds. "It is an advantage for students to have peers who are highly motivated, who have big dreams, who expect to go to college."