This study analyzes public perceptions of Boston's magnet school program. Typically evaluated in terms of their impact on racial integration, magnet schools also were designed to improve the tarnished image of the Boston school system. While promoting voluntary integration at a handful of schools, the magnet program struggled to change the…

One of the designers of the "Controlled Choice" student-assignment plan of the Boston (Massachusetts) public schools presents his evaluation of options suggested to replace the plan. The three options under consideration do not accomplish the main goal of any student-assignment plan, that is, to improve education. (SLD)

Explores the reasons for the persistence of and intense interest in the United States' oldest large-scale transfer of inner-city students to suburban high schools, that of Boston (Massachusetts). This voluntary desegregation program continues to thrive because it offers educational quality without producing a racial struggle for access to…