New Wake County Board of Education plans jeopardize magnet school grants
Here's a topic that hasn't received the attention it deserves in the ongoing battle over the future of the Wake County public school system: magnet schools. This is surprising since, in many ways, the accomplishments and prevalence of Wake County's magnet schools have been synonymous with the system's national reputation as a beacon of progress and success.
But what are they? Why do we have them? What will happen to them if the new board follows through with its plan to re-segregate the schools? These basic questions seem to have been frequently shunted to the side in the current process.
The basics
The basic idea behind magnets is pretty simple and straightforward: 1) identify a struggling public school – usually in a less desirable neighborhood with an older physical plant, 2) add some additional resources that make its curricula attractive to families in more affluent neighborhoods, and 3) open enrollment and provide transportation so that some of the comparatively well-off children can attend. Boom: instant (or at least relatively quick) and voluntary socioeconomic and racial integration on significant scale.
Even more importantly, the influx of families of higher incomes sets a chain reaction of events into motion that strengthens the school's overall culture. Because some of the new parents are more likely to have at least some time and resources on their hands, more people start participating in PTA. This, in turn, builds connections with the broader community – leveraging resources (volunteers, tutors, gifts) that further strengthen the school. Schools (and, often, the neighborhoods around them) become healthier.
Meanwhile, the opportunity to explore different subjects and the overall invitation to innovate draws many good and creative teachers. Before too long, what was once just a struggling school in a tough neighborhood has been lifted up. As an added bonus, as magnet school teachers, administrators and graduates gradually fan out into traditional schools, they take many of the ideas and innovations with them. Non-magnets benefit by a kind of osmosis. Finally, because of the demand to attend, magnets tend to run at full capacity – thus making them more cost efficient than schools running at less than 100%.
Of course, magnets are not a perfect solution. To keep them desirable, enrollment must be limited. In an ideal world, of course, all schools would have all the resources they could possibly want. Moreover, the tendency toward socioeconomic segregation within the magnet school can often be a real challenge.
But, of course, in an ideal world, there wouldn't be widespread socioeconomic segregation and large numbers of low income families to begin with. As for in-school segregation, it's clear that magnets do far better than so-called "neighborhood schools" in promoting interaction between various groups. The bottom line: As a practical matter, magnets are a proven and cost-effective way to meet numerous, critical pedagogical and societal objectives.
The Wake County situation
The success and overall cost-effectiveness explains why magnets have been an important part of the Wake County schools for three decades. At last count, there were 33 magnet schools in Wake County – roughly one out of five. Here are some other key numbers:
29,609 – Student enrollment in magnet schools
10,353 – Number of magnet students (i.e. kids who attend magnets that are not their natural "base" school.)
8% – Magnet students as a percentage of total student enrollment
9,213 – Number of magnet applications in the spring 2009
40% – Percentage of applications accepted
100% – Average membership/capacity of magnet schools
92% – Percentage for Wake County as a whole
35% – Percentage of students in magnet school eligible for free or reduced price lunch (FRL)
28% – Percentage for the system as a whole
17% – Average percentage point reduction in magnet school FRL
41% – Average percentage increase in magnet school membership/capacity
In short, Wake County magnets have been extremely successful – so successful that they have become a model to school systems all over the country. Retired Wake County magnet program director Caroline Massengill told a gathering of concerned parents at a Great Schools in Wake Coalition meeting earlier this month that whenever she attended magnet conferences and other such events around the country she was often besieged by those who wanted to learn more about Wake's record of success and how they could copy it.
Federal dollars at risk
Proof of the acclaim and effectiveness of the Wake County magnet program can be seen in its repeated success in attracting federal Department of Education grants. Over the last two-plus decades, the program has brought in $36 million in Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) funds. According to Massengill, this means that Wake was successful in the extremely competitive nationwide grant program six separate times – nearly every time it applied. The most recent success came in 2007 when Wake pulled in a three-year, $8.3 million to help upgrade Southeast Raleigh High School, Garner High School and East Garner Middle School. It was the fourth largest grant in the nation out of 41 that were awarded. The next round of grant applications is actually due in April.
Unfortunately, this important source of funding and national acclaim for Wake County schools could well be in jeopardy in the future if the new Board carries through with its threat to remove socioeconomic diversity as a school district priority. Here is the opening sentence of program description of the federal MSAP:
"These grants assist in the desegregation of public schools by supporting the elimination, reduction, and prevention of minority group isolation in elementary and secondary schools with substantial numbers of minority group students."
The description goes on:
"Magnet programs aim to eliminate, reduce, or prevent minority group isolation in elementary and secondary schools while strengthening students' knowledge of academic subjects and their grasp of marketable vocational skills. The special curriculum of a magnet school attracts substantial numbers of students from different social, economic, ethnic, and racial backgrounds and provides greater opportunities for voluntary and court-ordered desegregation efforts to succeed."
In other words, if Wake County moves to abandon its longstanding commitment to socioeconomic diversity, it's hard to see how it will have much chance of future success in a competitive federal grant process based on that very principle.
This fact, in turn, raises fundamental questions about the future of magnets, generally. While some of the members of the new school board majority have professed support for "magnets," it doesn't appear that their vision is congruent with the basic premise behind the concept. How can one be for magnets and against an intentional commitment to promoting socioeconomic diversity? It's like being for roads and against ending traffic congestion. Such a position is oxymoronic – unless, that is, what you're really for is a narrow and cramped view of magnets (or roads) that's actually about getting a bigger piece of the public pie for your neighborhood and constituents rather than benefitting the community as a whole.
Going forward
One of the toughest lessons for any newly elected public official – especially those elected on an anti-government platform – is to discover that governing is a heck of a lot tougher that campaigning. It's easy to rail against things, but to actually make a complex public system work – to make the trains (or school buses) run on time and to do so in such a way that benefits the entire community – is a tough task. Let's hope that learning some of the hard truths about magnet schools will have that effect on the new members of the Wake school board. Once they learn how hard and important it is to build a system that works, maybe they'll be less inclined to tear the existing one down.
