Socioeconomic integration plans are receiving increased attention following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision late last month curtailing the ability of school districts to use race in student assignment policies. The New York Times’s story rightly touts the academic benefits of such programs—research finds that all students do better in economically mixed schools than high poverty schools—but it is unduly pessimistic about the ability of income integration plans to produce racial diversity.

The New York Times article focused primarily on San Francisco, where a plan that replaced racial integration with economic integration several years ago has produced a decline in the number of racially integrated schools. Part of the decrease in racial integration, however, has nothing to do with the district’s use of economic as opposed to racial criteria, but rather with the modest nature of the new socioeconomic integration program. Under the old racial integration plan, San Francisco had a systemwide goal that no school should have a majority of students from any one racial or ethnic group. But its new socioeconomic diversity plan has no comparable systemwide application; instead, socioeconomic status becomes a factor only when schools are oversubscribed by families. High-poverty and high-minority schools, which tend to be under-chosen, are completely unaffected by the plan. If San Francisco had continued to use race, but switched from a systemwide plan to one that affects only oversubscribed schools, it too would have seen a decline in racial integration. As such, San Francisco is not a fair test of how well socioeconomic integration plans translate into racial integration.

Moreover, the article fails to provide details about the important racial dividend of economic school integration in a number of other communities. The article correctly notes the important achievement benefits of economic integration plans in places such as Wake County (Raleigh), North Carolina, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, where test scores have risen. But the story does not mention that these programs also produce significant racial integration. In Wake County, 63.3 percent of schools remained racially integrated after a switch from race to socioeconomic status compared with 64.6 percent under the old race-based plan. And in Cambridge, looking across four racial groups in twelve schools, 87.5 percent of students are in racially balanced schools under the socioeconomic plan. By definition, income-based integration plans will not guarantee precisely the same amount of racial integration as race-based plans, but they do produce a significant amount—particularly when well implemented.

Finally, in its focus on San Francisco’s failure to produce sufficient racial diversity, the article strangely neglects to mention the achievement benefits of the city’s socioeconomic integration plan. Although San Francisco has a higher proportion of low income students that the state of California as a whole, San Francisco students consistently outperform California students statewide. The district has also consistently been the top performing urban district in the state. Research has long shown that African American students do not achieve at higher levels sitting next to whites but low income students of all races do better in middle class schools.

Moving forward, districts committed to increasing academic achievement and fostering better race relations will want to explore creative ways to combine using race and socioeconomic status in student assignment. Districts should continue to use race in the very limited ways that the Supreme Court allows. But to raise academic achievement—and to remain legally viable—the careful use of race should be supplemented with robust and system-wide strategies for integrating students by socioeconomic status.

Richard D. Kahlenberg is a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation.