A Refining of Magnet Schools: The Segregated System

A Refining of Magnet Schools: The Segregated System

Magnet schools are designed to promote voluntary school desegregation and to enhance

educational quality through thematic teaching of uniform curriculum (www.magnet.edu). Partially funded by the federal government through grants and assistance programs, magnet schools essentially provide choice to parents and students across America to gain a more specialized education.

Intrinsically, magnet schools allow students from many different districts to unite in one school in hopes of creating a racially diverse learning environment. Despite the attempt made by the federal government to desegregate schools, Jonathon Kozol points out that, in fact, the magnet schools have even further isolated the poor urban student and that magnet schools have indeed failed to meet initial expectations as a desegregated environment. Yet desegregation is apparent in the areas of philosophy and purpose, admission and entrance to the schools, and curriculum.

The initial proposal of the magnet school as a means to create racial equity among schools has been unsuccessful despite its statement of philosophy and purpose. “By shifting focus toward academic interests…magnet schools are attempting to bring together students who have common interests regardless of race” (www.liberalparty.com). However, despite its attempts, the system of magnet schools has failed to overcome racial segregation. Kozol notes that “very poor children, excluded from this [magnet] system, says the Chicago Tribune, are ‘even more isolated’ as a consequence of the removal of the more successful students from their midst” (Kozol 59). According to Kozol and the

Tribune, the magnet system is further segregating the school systems by worsening the regular public schools in neighboring areas. What must not be forgotten are the existing schools that the less successful and less motivated students are left to attend, and the damaging effects that they face as a result of the magnet school system. In addition, in an evaluation of the Magnet Schools Assistance Program between 1989 and 1991, researchers “Steel and Eaton discovered that only half the schools met their

desegregation objectives” (www.eric.uoregon.edu). Another study providing evidence that

racial equity has failed to be realized through the use of magnet schools is in a recent statecommissioned evaluation of New York State’s magnet school program for 1993-94. The study “found that schools did not completely achieve their academic or desegregation goals” (New York State 1994- www.eric.urogen.edu). Legal critic Kimberly West has also concluded that “magnet schools are a ‘desegregation tool that backfired, are rife with racially segregated classes,’ and minority students are too often ‘treated as inferior by the very system that was designed to help them’” (www.