Case Studies of Magnet Schools: When Do They Work Best?
Case studies of magnet schools support recent research findings suggesting that the smaller and more compact a school district is, the greater the promise of purely voluntary desegregation. As Mark A. Smylie of Vanderbilt University puts it, “If you’ve got one or two schools out of whack, you can put magnets there and solve your districtwide problem. It gets more difficult the more minority students you have and the more schools you have.” And the presence of a numerical goal–enforceable through mandatory means if voluntary methods fail–also appears to be a powerful influence on the relative success of magnets. The large urban districts generally considered most successful with magnets have made substantial progress through voluntary measures, but have either resorted to mandatory busing to achieve approximate racial balance in each school or left…
