Magnet Schools and Resegregation

Magnet schools, which draw students from beyond the normal boundaries of school districts, have been seen as a strategy for racially integrating U.S. schools. However, there is considerable evidence that U.S. schools in the past 2 decades have become increasingly segregated. Have magnet schools exacerbated this trend, or have they mitigated the consequences of intensified racial segregation, especially among low-income, urban African Americans ? This entry examines whether or not magnet schools have proven to be a successful strategy as a method of racially integrating schools.

Since the historic 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka legally ended de jure racial segregation in American public schools, states and school districts across the United States have grappled with the ongoing dilemma of de facto segregation. While the patterns of de facto segregation are complex, depending on the region and culture of a state or school district, residential segregation has tended to divide African Americans and Whites according to the neighborhoods in which they reside. Overcoming these divisions has proved difficult from a public policy perspective because the levers to enforce mandatory residential integration are virtually nonexistent.

To comply with court orders to integrate their schools, states and school districts have implemented a variety of racial balancing strategies. These strategies have ranged from busing students within school districts and between school districts to achieve racial balancing, to implementing controlled-choice programs that allow family choice but require racial balancing, to reorganizing school attendance zones to overlap residential neighborhoods that differ significantly in terms of their racial compositions.

Since the 1970s, many school districts have attempted to achieve racial balance and create more educational options by founding what are referred to as magnet schools. This innovation was made possible by the 1971 U.S. Supreme Court case Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, which set basic guidelines for urban desegregation, including magnet schools as viable components of desegregation plans.

Magnet schools have specialized curricula and educational philosophies organized according to a theme or pedagogical approach. Families may voluntarily enroll their children in magnet schools. From a racial balancing perspective, magnet schools must draw students from across attendance zones. Most magnet schools are found in urban areas, and recent studies indicate that approximately a million and a half students attended magnet schools in the United States in 2011. More than half of magnet schools are elementary schools, and approximately 20% are high schools. Studies have shown that most magnet schools have admission policies and processes by which they are able to exclude students with academic and/or behavioral problems. Thus, magnet schools, while public, have some of the characteristics of private schools.

The policy framework informing the magnet school movement blends three educational and social assumptions:

• 1.
  Racial integration can be achieved within the public school sector without significant school deregulation.
• 2.
  Market mechanisms will create new schools that will attract African American and White families alike.
• 3.
  Magnet schools will be of sufficient quality that they will be fully enrolled and economically sustainable.

For a magnet program to be successful, a district must implement an open enrollment policy. If racial balancing is to be achieved, students must be able to choose schools across attendance zones.

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