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Motoko Rich, NY Times
MIAMI - Nearly five decades ago, as racial tension raged in cities, magnet schools were introduced here and elsewhere as an alternative to court-ordered busing in the hope that specialized theme schools would slow white flight and offer options to racial minorities zoned for low-performing schools.
Magnet schools never quite delivered on that desegregation promise, and in the past couple of decades they have largely fallen off the radar. But in this multiracial city - and, increasingly, in other urban districts including Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Newark and Washington - public school leaders are refocusing on the idea as traditional public schools come under increasing pressure from charter schools and vouchers for private schools.
Kimberly Celifarco with one of her kindergarten students, Gerson Perez, 5, at Public School 253 in Brooklyn.Common Core Curriculum Now Has Critics on the LeftFEB. 16, 2014
The number of children in Miami-Dade County attending magnet programs - which admit students from anywhere in the district and focus on themes like art, law or technology - has grown by 35 percent in the past four years. These children now account for about one in six students in the district.
The pattern is similar across the country. There are now about 2.8 million students attending magnet schools - more than the nearly 2.6 million enrolled in charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated.
Magnets have "become kind of a go-to alternative as a way to incorporate some of the popular elements of choice while keeping the choice constrained more explicitly within the traditional district," said Jeffrey R. Henig, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University. "It's a recognition on the part of districts that at least some of the enthusiasm and popularity of charters is a resistance to the notion of a one-size-fits-all school."
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