A Sky Without Stars

[dtengineering]

If only magnet schools were simply about taking "the most gifted".

The research, and history, shows there is a lot more to it than that, primarily related to parents' education, affluence, and expectations for their kids.

It doesn't mean magnet schools are "wrong" or "bad", any more than it means that private schools, or religious schools are. Parents, with the motivation and ability to do so, reasonbly seek out the perceived best opportunities for their children. Those same parents also tend to be the most able to bring funding, support and other strengths to their children's schools.

One of my favorite studies (wish I had the citation here...) showed that students in magnet schools had higher average academic success than those in non-magent schools. But the district they studied had fewer spaces in magnet schools than they had applicants, so they conducted a lottery to see which students would get in to the magnet schools. When they compared the success of the students in the magnet schools, to those who had applied for admission to the magnet schools, but been denied entry, they found almost no difference in academic success. They were able to argue, convincingly, that being in a magnet school made very little difference to a student's academic success... but having a parent who wanted them to be in a magnet school and was able to co-ordinate an application, and was prepared for the extra cost of transportation to get to the magnet school, was a HUGE factor in the student's success.

That can create challenges for schools that loose student and parent leaders to the magnet schools. Good, bad... right, wrong... hard to say... but, like so much in education, a complex issue with lots of grey areas.

It's great that you are able to use robotics as an enrichment activity to draw the best out of your students.

Jason

[Aiyash]

This post is spot on. Thank you for posting this.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

One of my favorite studies (wish I had the citation here...) showed that students in magnet schools had higher average academic success than those in non-magent schools. But the district they studied had fewer spaces in magnet schools than they had applicants, so they conducted a lottery to see which students would get in to the magnet schools.

This is precisely my workplace. However, I am not knowledgable on any data comparing applicants who were accepted or not accepted through the lottery. It would be an interesting thing to look at here.

[MooreteP]

Thank you for this post.

As a public school teacher in an area with a raft of "magnet" schools, I empathize with your feelings.

Schools should be axes of their communities, blending young citizens with each other in a host of cooperative activities such as music, theater, sports, community service activities, as well as the classroom.

Going back to Brown vs. the Board of Education, those students just wanted to go to the school in their local community. The upshot of this decision ended up creating the opposite effect. Students were bussed to schools almost an hour away from their homes, effectively removing them from the extracurricular activities that would weave a strong community fabric.

Here in Connecticut, we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars duplicating school facilities that diffuse our communities and undermine the local school's function as a center of organization to build a greater whole.

That being said, our team has incorporated as a non-profit and accept students from any of our surrounding schools, including magnet and technical schools. We go with what we got.

Magnet schools polarize communities.

"A Sky Without Stars" is an excellent phrase to describe this issue and the OP is spot on.

I take solace and do FIRST because it provides a path to ameliorate what I believe is the deleterious effect of these "magnet" schools.