San Francisco -- More than 40 of San Francisco's 114 public schools are likely to have "severely resegregated" student populations when school starts in less than three weeks, according to a state-appointed monitor.

San Francisco, once one of the most integrated urban districts in the country, now is on "a continuing slide toward additional resegregation," Stuart Biegel wrote in a study released Thursday.

The number of segregated schools in the city -- those with one ethnic group making up 60 percent or more of at least one grade -- jumped from 30 schools two years ago, said Biegel, a UCLA law and education professor hired by the state to monitor the district's desegregation program.

While the projected total for this year is 35 to 38 schools, Biegel said the final number had ended up being significantly higher than projected levels in previous years.

At several schools, the increase has been abrupt. At Francis Scott Key Elementary in the Sunset District, for example, Chinese Americans are projected to make up 73.7 percent of the student population this year, compared with 55.4 percent last year.

At Sanchez Elementary in Eureka Valley, Latino students will make up 72.4 percent, up from 59.6 percent last year.

The pattern has been evident since a 1999 court order ended race-based enrollment in response to a suit brought by Chinese American parents, who objected to the district's policy of setting a maximum racial enrollment at desirable schools such as Lowell High. In 2001, the parents, district, state and NAACP agreed to a new form of school admissions that includes a diversity index.

The index takes into account six factors: socioeconomic status, academic achievement, mother's educational background, language status, home language and academic performance of the child's previous school.

Some who say the diversity index can't work without race being one of its components said Biegel's report proved their case.

"I think it shows how difficult it is to integrate schools when race cannot be taken into account," said Ted Wang, policy director for Chinese for Affirmative Action. "Integrated schools are part of a good education."

Orla O'Keeffe, special assistant to Arlene Ackerman, superintendent of San Francisco schools, said the diversity index hadn't been given enough time to show results.

"The methodology including the diversity index is new and needs time to demonstrate effectiveness," she said. "We are hopeful now that, with time, our student assignment methodology will lead to increased diversity in our schools. "

Many were surprised by the extent of segregation in San Francisco, including Michael Harris, assistant director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights for the San Francisco Bay Area.

"It seems that we're just going right back to where we started, to segregated schools," he said.

Harris said that while the district was "somewhat handcuffed" by the 2001 agreement, it needed to find a way to promote more diversity, and using a student's neighborhood as a factor was one possibility.

David Levine, one of the lawyers who represented the Chinese American parents who sued the district, said Biegel's definition of "severe resegregation" might be overstated.

"It's his own definition," Levine said of the 60 percent figure. "I don't know that everybody would use that."

Levine added that the diversity index can't be seen as a failure from Biegel's statistics because it is achieving "economic diversity, language diversity and educational diversity." He added that if the district offered more top-notch schools, the issue would be moot.

"Certainly, the overall solution to the problem is more good schools so that we're not in the situation of having to fight over a limited number of spots," Levine said. "Basically, people want good neighborhood schools no matter what your race is."

Under the 2001 agreement, the school board is free to suggest modifications to the diversity index so long as they don't involve race. Jill Wynns, a school board member, said the index might need to be "tweaked."

Levine said he would welcome suggestions -- and that improvements to the index are necessary.

"The school board has to do a whole lot more than they've done," he said. "They've got lots of room to come up with race-neutral ways to adjust the index. The ball is in their court."