“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this.”
I was on a Zoom call with a national leader in the magnet school movement, someone who frequently serves as a consultant to districts working to establish or overhaul a magnet program. I had asked her about the enrollment practices at a magnet school she had founded in a large Southern school district.
“If the kids were good dancers, sometimes we just let them in,” she said.
She was confessing to violating her school district’s policy about fair enrollment for magnet schools. The school in question was a dance-oriented high school, but presumably the district had some sort of standard process or algorithm that determined who would be allowed in. The school leaders decided to ignore those requirements and simply “gift” enrollment to some of the better dancers who wanted to attend. Because this school was so coveted, their decision also meant that another student was denied enrollment every time a good dancer was admitted off the books.
Before you cast judgment on this educator, for good or ill, I want to point out that magnet schools have largely escaped scrutiny for their admissions practices. My organization, Available to All, released a report last year that evaluated state laws governing admissions practices at public schools. I was surprised to learn that not a single state has a robust law that puts any meaningful constraints on the enrollment practices of magnet schools. (In a small number of jurisdictions—including Florida, Delaware, and the District of Columbia—there are some limited open-enrollment constraints that apply to magnets, as well as other types of public schools.)
This stands in marked contrast with charter school laws, which spell out how admissions processes are to work and usually forbid enrollment preferences. Most charters are required to take applications from all comers and to hold a lottery if there are too many applicants. Charter laws also usually forbid the use of selective processes based on academic performance or demonstration of a specialized skill (e.g., an audition). Behind these laws is an assumption that, if it was legal to do so, school leaders might be tempted to cherry-pick their students.
What’s more, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) has taken a role in defining fair enrollment practices for charters. A few years ago, NAPCS published guidelines on when it is appropriate for charter schools to give low-income students a preferential chance at enrollment via a “weighted lottery.” While I disagree with their stance—it violates the principle that a public school is open to all members of the public on equal terms—I admire NAPCS for establishing a clear position and being transparent.
Later in that Zoom call, I asked my interlocutor if Magnet Schools of America, the magnet sector’s own national organization, publishes any guidance on admissions policies—guardrails to avoid abuses, or even parameters for what it takes to be called a magnet school. “No,” she said. “We don’t have anything like that.”
Without any constraints imposed by state laws or any professional standards that govern admissions processes, magnet schools could be considered the Wild West of public school admissions. As the dance story shows, magnet school leaders are flawed people, no different than the leaders of charter schools and traditional public schools. At times they will be tempted to bend or break the rules to benefit themselves or others. They might even do so for good reasons, like maintaining the culture of a dance-oriented school.
School leaders are public servants who should operate under legal and professional guardrails. If those guardrails don’t exist, policymakers need to provide them. They should also insist on consistent regulations for all types of public schools. Why should magnet schools operate under a laissez faire regime while charter schools are highly regulated and subject to strict state laws on admissions practices? It doesn’t make sense and fails to protect the rights of families.
Any attempt to establish standards for these schools will have to confront the reality that magnet schools can take many forms. Indeed, in many states or cities, they are not even called magnet schools. Take, for example, “options” schools in Seattle, “signature” schools in Kansas City, or “specialized schools” in New York City. All three are designed to pull in students from across the district, rather than having strict attendance zones, and are therefore consistent with the conventional definition of a magnet school.
