Tips for getting your kids picked up by a magnet

By Bob Sipchen School Me

January 15, 2007

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Negligent Los Angeles parents take note: You have only until Friday to get a postmark on the magnet school application that your more responsible peers regard — rightly or wrongly — as their last desperate hope for getting their children a good education at taxpayer expense.

Don't panic, though.

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FOR THE RECORD:
Magnet school students: The School Me column in Monday's California section said that magnet school students received four "matriculation" points for each consecutive year they attended a magnet school, for a total of 12 points. They receive 12 points regardless of the number of years attended. —

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Sure, last school year 65,000 applicants battled for about 16,000 spots at 162 Los Angeles Unified School District magnet campuses with concentrations on such diverse subjects as natural science, administrative law and Latin music.

And yes, really good parents have been working on strategies for accumulating magnet "points" since well before their children were born.

For those of you who aren't that devoted, here's a quick primer on how to game the system.

Your first faltering steps will depend on a pivotal choice.

It goes without saying that you're terrified of the local middle school, which you just assume has lousy test scores because of those tough-looking kids you see hanging out in front, presumably spreading graffiti, smack and STDs.

But are you among the lucky few living in a middle-class niche neighborhood with a boutique elementary school that you want your child to attend?

Or did a tour of your local elementary school also make you worry that you could be tossing Precious into perdition?

In my view, parents make the magnet decision today based far more on complex issues of social class than race per se.

But race was the issue when district mucky-mucks cooked up the system in 1977 to comply with the California Supreme Court's order to voluntarily integrate.

Thirty years later the United States Supreme Court is pondering whether magnets in other states are violating the Constitution by making enrollment decisions based on skin color. L.A. Unified's magnet program could be at risk.

In the meantime, race remains the pivotal magnet criterion.

We'll have to return to that. Race has nothing to do with getting those magnet points that determine your child's position on the list that the district's computer generates to determine who gets into each school.

They can be acquired in five ways only:

1) A child can claim four "matriculation" points for every consecutive year he's in a magnet school, up to a total of 12 points.

2) If a child applies to a magnet and is rejected, he gets four points per rejection, again for a maximum of 12 "wait list" points.

3) If the district has slapped a PHBAO label (that's "predominantly Hispanic, black, Asian and other non-Anglo") on the child's non-magnet neighborhood school, he gets another four points.