It's a school that has something for just about everyone: a solid curriculum in the core subjects, plus a program with a special focus on math and science, one with a focus on arts and culture, another that features the performing arts, and yet another that immerses students in activities that simulate the real world. Indeed, students who decide to attend Gardendale Elementary Magnet School (GEMS) in Merritt Field, Fla., actually have four different schools to choose from; they're just housed in the same building.
This four-theme magnet school was designed to attract students, and it has, says Albert Narvaez, principal at GEMS. "We started with 250 students. We now have 700 students and a waiting list."
Compare GEMS' success to the days before Gardendale became a magnet, when enrollments were declining and the student body was becoming less diverse. "We tried a lot of things to reverse the trend, but finally turned to the magnet concept," Narvaez notes. Still, he adds, although GEMS has been successful in increasing enrollment and achieving a better racial balance, "the reason people started coming to GEMS was not because they wanted to desegregate schools. People came because GEMS would provide a better education for their kids."
Dueling Missions?
Gardendale's story exemplifies what has become the dual mission of magnet schools: to encourage voluntary desegregation of public schools and provide choice within the public education system.
When magnet schools first appeared on the education scene over two decades ago, they were conceived to be the voluntary component of mandatory desegregation efforts, primarily in urban school districts. It was hoped that students would decide to attend magnet schools—even if they were located far from their homes—because what they gained through the specialized programs at these schools made the investment in time and travel worthwhile. This remains a fundamental purpose of magnet schools today.
If a magnet school offers a unique focus, a program not available at a neighborhood school, students are going to want to attend it, says Judith Stein, director of development at Magnet Schools of America (MSA). "As we like to say, it's what's at the end of the bus ride that counts," she says. "Magnets are a reason for the bus ride."
Now, say experts, magnet schools also play a vital role in offering families choice. But, unlike charter schools, which have dominated the national debate about choice recently, magnet schools provide choice within existing state laws and local regulations governing public education. "The number of magnet schools in the United States has doubled in the last five years," says Donald Waldrip, executive director at MSA. "Why? Because they work. And they work because they're chosen."
Still, some critics wonder if magnet schools can deliver on their promises to attain racial balance in schools and enhance student achievement.
Most school systems that design magnet programs "are extremely naive" and are "guided and advised by romantics who don't understand the true costs or hard realities" of desegregation, says Christine Rossell, a political science professor at Boston University. Rossell has been studying magnet schools since they became part of the education system in 1976. Some of those "hard realities" include her contention that no more than 15 percent of white students will attend a school other than their neighborhood school. "In some neighborhoods, that [15 percent of white students] can produce a change in racial composition—in other neighborhoods, it can't," she says. Further, Rossell notes, magnet schools are often scattered throughout the school system and, because her research reveals that most parents "prefer a magnet school located in a white neighborhood," not enough students voluntarily choose magnet schools located in black neighborhoods.
Stein is not convinced that magnet schools have failed to promote desegregation. She points to a recent study that found that only 47 percent of magnet schools have met federal desegregation requirements. "Well, you could think of that as almost half have met the requirements,'" she points out. "And that's pretty good."
Sometimes it's impossible to achieve racial balance because of the demographics of some school districts. Stein sites East Orange, N.J., as an example. "This is an all-black school district, but magnets in this district have evolved into schools of choice and specialty education," she says, contending that these schools are important for revitalizing public schools.
Phale Hale, an education consultant who, for 17 years, administered federal programs for the Rochester (New York) School District, agrees. "Often, magnets are created to provide special programs for students." What can then happen, Hale observes, "is that nonmagnet schools are spurred into improving their own programs—they have to rise to the competition."
Money Matters
Rising to the competition may be difficult, though, if finding the funds required to maintain magnet schools results in neighborhood schools receiving less, a concern that magnet school critics and supporters share.
"Sometimes magnets do receive more money than neighborhood schools," concedes Hale. "In some cases, magnet schools are more expensive to run." A science and technology school, for example, may require additional equipment; other magnet schools may require extra staff to provide an enhanced curriculum in the focus area. Still, says Hale, these funds are not siphoned from neighborhood schools. Often, there is a separate pool of money to be used for magnets only, he explains. And, if the magnet schools are court ordered, they must be funded, regardless of the impact on neighborhood schools. Federal money can help offset the expense of starting up these schools, Hale says.
But, counters Rossell, federal funds are only a small percentage of the funds needed for magnets and only a few states fund magnet schools. "So, not every school district with magnets gets magnet school funds," she points out. "If more money is spent on magnets, some will come out of the school district budget." And, she says, when federal funding stops, "school districts can't close the programs down because parents will kill them. Districts have to keep them going and then justify the expenditures by saying this is what we're doing to support voluntary integration."
Achievement Talks
Schools may be able to justify the expenditures by saying that magnet schools boost student achievement, suggests a study on magnet schools published last year.
The study, conducted by Adam Gamoran, a professor of sociology and education policy at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, was based on an analysis of 1988 and 1990 data from the National Education Longitudinal Study. Gamoran looked at the gains students made in achievement test scores as they moved from 8th to 10th grade, and found that student achievement in reading, science, and social studies was higher for students in magnet schools than for those in either public comprehensive high schools, private schools, or Roman Catholic schools.
In attempting to explain the results, Gamoran ruled out social bonding (how attached students felt to their schools) and more-rigorous course taking by students—there was no significant difference between magnets and comprehensive public schools in these areas. So, although research doesn't support his theory (he hopes more research will be done), Gamoran suspects that, not only do magnet schools receive more funds, they know how to use them to boost student learning.
"In general, we know that differences in resources do not necessarily account for differences in student achievement," Gamoran explains. "Magnet schools may be using their resources more effectively."
The research results can be seen "as encouragement for starting magnet schools," says Gamoran, who undertook the study because "very, very little was known about how student achievement compared between magnet and comprehensive public schools." And it's important, he notes, "that we keep student learning in mind" when determining which programs are "viable" in providing for choice and a sound education.
