In March 2004 and again in March 2006, I spent time meeting with more than 100 residents of Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre to talk about how to improve education in the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD). On both visits, I was struck by what has been called the "two Pasadenas."

There is the thriving Pasadena area, whose residents are more highly educated and wealthier than the state and the nation in which they reside, and which boasts nationally-known institutions such as the California Institute of Technology, the Rose Bowl, the Huntington Library and the Art Center College of Design.

But amidst this wealth and fame can be found another reality: a struggling low-income population, that is disproportionately Latino and African American, living in a quadrant of Pasadena and parts of Altadena, largely separated from the rest of the community.

The tragedy is that the two Pasadenas are being perpetuated for the next generation through a dual system of schools. Many middle-class and affluent students attend private schools, which educate an astounding 30 percent of the area's students (triple the national average for private school attendance). Some other middle-class students attend a handful of fairly successful economically mixed public schools.

Meanwhile, many low-income students attend another set of public schools with concentrations of poverty that tend not to do very well.

The good news is that PUSD has more potential to improve its schools, especially the academic achievement of its low-income students, than perhaps any other community in the country given the incredible resources within Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre. PUSD could make all of its schools world-class institutions.

What will it take? National research and data from PUSD clearly demonstrate that all students—poor and middle-class—perform better in economically integrated schools. Schools with a mix of students from different economic backgrounds are much more likely than high poverty schools to provide high levels of parental involvement, high standards and expectations, and high quality teaching. While there are isolated examples of successful high poverty schools, a long line of research finds that it is virtually impossible to make separate systems of schooling for rich and poor equal. Indeed mixed-income schools are 22 times more likely to be high performing than high poverty schools.

My analysis of Pasadena schools has found that low-income and minority students do better in mixed-income schools than in high-poverty schools even though the latter spend more money per pupil. Attracting more middle-class families to PUSD is not a zero-sum game that pits the middle-class against the poor. It is a win-win situation that will improve educational outcomes and satisfaction for both the middle-class and the poor.

How can PUSD attract more middle-class students to the public schools and improve the schools for all? The school system needs to think imaginatively about a system of magnet schools that have strong affiliations with the community's internationally-known resources. Would a math/science high school that has strong ties to Caltech, JPL and major engineering firms be attractive? A theater, arts and music magnet with ties to the Art Center College, the Armory and the Pasadena Playhouse? A dual language Spanish-English immersion program, in which half the students are dominant Spanish speakers, half dominant English speakers, and both groups learn to be fluent in both languages by the end of elementary school?

Top civic leaders need to participate in making magnet schools attractive, but ordinary citizens should be involved too. Parents with pre-school and school-aged children (in public and private school)should be surveyed to find out what sort of magnet schools would be attractive.

In places like Wake County (Raleigh), North Carolina, magnet schools have helped promote economically integrated settings and both low-income and middle-class students are performing better than their peers in other North Carolina cities.

In implementing an innovative program, Pasadena school officials should be firmly guided simultaneously by the twin goals of excellence and equity. In the 1970s, under court-ordered desegregation, Pasadena public schools engaged in a system of compulsory busing that focused on equity but which resulted in massive flight of middle-class families, from which Pasadena schools are still recovering.

To promote excellence and equity at once, Pasadena should create a system of public school choice which eventually makes all schools magnet schools - open to all—and ensures economic and educational equity between schools over time.

Forging one united Pasadena, in which the public schools are as strong as the community as a whole, is in the interest of everyone.

The full report, "One Pasadena: Tapping the City's Resources to Strengthen the Public Schools," commissioned by the Pasadena Educational Foundation, can be found here (PDF).

Richard D. Kahlenberg is Education Fellow at The Century Foundation. This article originally appeared in the Pasadena Star-News on June 17, 2006.