As it happens, most poor children in Milwaukee are of color. It stands to reason, then, that most beneficiaries of a program aimed at poor children in the city would be of color.

Some critics of Milwaukee's School choice program have quarreled with that logic, however. They have argued that the program would aid white students mainly and, thus, intensify racial isolation among Milwaukee schoolchildren.

Well, a year after the expansion of choice to religious schools, the racial tally is in. And — drum roll, please — the critics are wrong. The program has enhanced racial diversity among the city's students.

True, the information comes from unabashed supporters of choice — former Milwaukee School Superintendent Howard Fuller and public policy researcher George Mitchell. But their report is well documented.

Observations we draw from the report:

*Racial integration is not entirely a lost cause among the city's schoolchildren. While the Milwaukee Public Schools lack enough white students to go around, such students abound in the city's Catholic schools, making integration feasible there. The same goes for some other private schools participating in the choice program.

*The critics like to warn that school choice will lead to doom and gloom. The trouble is, their dire predictions have failed to materialize in cities where the program has been tried. No wonder the momentum is on the side of school choice. If their hope is to be persuasive, the choice critics must adjust their arguments to reflect reality in Milwaukee and Cleveland, where choice also is under way.

*The present racial diversity was predictable because of the way the school choice program was set up. The schools were required to admit all comers who met the income guidelines — and on a random basis, if the number of applicants exceeded the number of desks. Retaining those rules would continue to foster racial balance. Such measures as raising the income cap, however, could hurt racial diversity.

We dislike the practice of sending public tax dollars to private religious schools, because it undermines the wall between church and state.

But the courts have made it law in Milwaukee. Though school choice as it's practiced here erodes the wall between religion and government, it has its benefits — among them racial diversity, which deserves continued encouragement.