Magnets Reimagined as School Choice Option

Daniell Pitt, 14, joins other students during a discussion of the science of vegetable growing at Bailey Middle School, a STEM-themed magnet school in Nashville, Tenn., that opened this year. Magnets have evolved from a desegregation tool to another school choice option.

—Josh Anderson for Education Week

By Nora Fleming

Once considered a solution to desegregate racially divided districts, magnet schools today have been forced to evolve, given legal barriers that bar using race to determine school enrollment and increasing pressure to provide more public school choices.

In a post-desegregation era, many large districts like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Baltimore County, have maintained high numbers of magnet schools, even amid the economic downturn, and others are using magnets as a strategy to meet new goals around improving school quality.

The changing definitions and demands have left the purpose and future of magnet schools in flux, according to magnet school advocates and researchers, particularly as the charter school movement continues to gather steam on...