Magnet schools employ a variety of methods in order to enroll a diverse student body, such as targeted outreach, free and accessible transportation, encouraging choice across school districts, intentional school siting, and employing equitable lottery-based admissions policies. Many magnets also offer innovative programs around an attractive and…

This "Equity Tool" provides facts and frequently asked questions about magnet schools and their integration efforts. It is meant to be shared with various education stakeholders, including those directly involved in designing and implementing magnet school policies at the local level as well as those at state and federal levels who are…

This brief describes the components found in magnet schools that are both racially diverse and educationally effective. It also outlines four evidence-based policy recommendations that can inform federal, state, and local efforts to help design, implement, and sustain effective magnet schools that foster integrated learning and positive student…

"Brown v. Board of Education" held that the educational systems of seventeen states that mandated segregated schools violated the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection. The decision helped set off the civil rights revolution. However, after so many years of backlash, schools of the South are dramatically less segregated than what…

May 17, 2024 marks the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court decision that ruled segregated schools were "inherently unequal." At the time, North Carolina was one of 17 states that enforced de jure segregation, that is, segregation by law. The state of North Carolina and the school districts within…

Schools' priorities in student selection constitute the basis for fairness in school admissions. We study the case where schools are active strategic players that rank their applicants in terms of priorities. A methodological framework is developed to examine the impact of the variation in the admission settings on the equality of opportunity in…

In the United States, the right to education resides in the states. Every state constitution affirmatively requires state legislatures to maintain and support a system of elementary and secondary schools open to all resident children. Although the language of these constitutional provisions varies, in all cases they mandate states, through their…

School choice is expanding, but the majority of students in countries like the United States still attend the school associated with their residential address. We study assignment policies and reassignments of students, where students apply to attend a magnet school or request to transfer to another school within the public school system.…

Schools and districts have long grappled with race- and disability-based exclusionary discipline inequities. Research on the topic has uncovered a variety of systems that maintain such disparities, including school policies and practices that exacerbate the problem. Researchers and practitioners have increasingly considered school context and…

Historically, debates about educational choice have wrestled with big, unresolved tensions that lie at the heart of American life, having to do with individual rights, community obligations, public and private interests, religious freedoms, and more. But in recent years, school reformers have tended to talk about choice as though it referred only…

Inequitable access to postsecondary education opportunities continues to persist in many highly segregated, under-resourced urban school districts. This study examined the college-going culture of three urban public secondary schools located in one district, with a close examination of the role magnet and nonmagnet school designations had in…

Policymakers originally created magnets to voluntarily enroll a racially diverse population of students in non-White city neighborhoods by offering unique curricular experiences intended to attract White parents. Successfully desegregated magnets inorganically curated racially mixed schools by appealing to the interests of affluent and/or White…

The rapid expansion of school choice is restructuring public education in the United States. This study examines associations between charter and magnet school enrollment, White-Black and White-Hispanic segregation, and test score gaps at the district level from 2009 to 2015 in third to eighth grade using the Stanford Education Data Archive and…

The purpose of this manual is to support school districts and schools in developing diverse and equitable magnet programs. It is intended to help stakeholders during the planning phases of developing new magnet schools or during the revision or expansion of existing magnet schools. The manual focuses on: (1) Why districts should consider…

School choice is a hotly debated issue in today's press, politics, and public discourse. In principle, the idea of families being able to choose the public school that is best for their children has widespread appeal. Interest in choice has been fueled in part by distinctive views about educational approaches and in part by the fact that…