Pittsburgh Magnet Schools Attract a Crowd, Controversy

Edward Cohn, a 38-year-old rabbi and father of two girls, suspects that he started some of the trouble.

Eager to enroll one of his daughters in a special public school program, Cohn parked his blue Chevrolet sedan outside the sign-up site at Reizenstein Middle School one cold Monday night because “the whole area just had a sense of expectation about it.”

Like police on patrol, two women in a Ford station wagon drove by, recognized Cohn, and immediately picked up a car telephone.

Within minutes, a posse of about a dozen parents equipped with books, blankets and thermoses set up a line of rickety lawn furniture and cots on the sidewalk. Cohn immediately phoned his wife for supplies and took to the line himself.

As word of the ragtag queue spread, more parents arrived and the ranks burgeoned to about 150. Self-appointed leaders held roll call every three hours and policed the line for intruders.

Long, Cold Wait

The six-day vigil through record-breaking cold, sleet and snow took place in the name of education. Everyone wanted to make sure that their child got into the Pittsburgh Public Schools’ first-come, first-served magnet school program--a program School Supt. Richard Wallace ruefully said is turning into a “status symbol.”

One worried parent said, “The program wasn’t designed to be exclusive, but it has become exclusive.”

The city began its magnet program in 1979 as a way to ease the tension of desegregation. The 19 magnet programs offer a limited number of students training in specialized subjects, from French for first-graders to law and public service for seniors, as an inducement for parents to send their children to schools outside their neighborhoods.

“The thinking is that you’ve got to provide something at the end of the bus ride in order to get people to voluntarily transfer from one school to another that may be farther from their home,” said school district spokeswoman Pat Crawford.

Half for Blacks

Half the places in each magnet program are allocated for black students and the other half are for whites and others. Most of the district’s non-magnet schools are integrated less thoroughly through busing.

When the magnet schools were introduced, they attracted 1,500 students. This year, 8,500 of the district’s 40,000 pupils are in magnet programs.

“Parents will do whatever it takes” to get their children in a magnet program, Crawford said.

“They don’t want to leave it to chance. If it means camping out for days, or getting their friends to help, they’re willing to do it. They’ve rented campers and they’ve even paid people to stand in line for them.”

The magnet schools have prompted thousands of parents to pull their children out of parochial or private schools and others to leave some of the finest schools in the state to move to Pittsburgh.

But Wallace and others also worry that the schools’ popularity has “gotten out of hand,” discriminating against single parents and other families who cannot afford to take off work to stand in line and detracting from the district’s regular schools.

“In all honesty, we may have overplayed those cards in the sense of trumping up the magnet programs,” Wallace said.

Meanwhile, some parents think that they have been dragged reluctantly into the magnet frenzy.

“It’s a crazy thing,” said John Canning, 47, a teacher and father of two girls. “I’m not so sure these schools are so much better than the regular schools. But they sell these magnets to you and you take your kids to see them.

“My daughter wants this language middle school. If that’s where she wants to go and there’s an option, it’s a terrible thing to say, ‘No, you can’t go because I don’t want to stand in line.’ ”

Small lines for the more popular programs formed in 1981. But the two recent sign-ups for 1987-88 set new records and exposed a growing problem.

Last fall, tempers flared during the sign-up for kindergarten and elementary magnet programs.

School officials had warned parents that they would not honor any line that formed before 7 a.m. the day of registration. But several hundred people ignored the warning, forming a line several days in advance.

When newcomers tried to crash the line, some of those who had waited through rain and windy weather shouted threats and profanities, while others burst into tears.

Fearing violence, security guards formed a new line by taking three parents from the original line for every one of the new arrivals.

Neither side was pleased.

“I feel angry and betrayed,” said Stephanie Flom, who had camped out in the line.

“I do not think I am terrible. I think they are sheep,” said Grace Leffakis, who cut into a line to get her daughter into a first-grade program.

“I feel that every member of the school board should be indicted for inciting a riot,” William Mehall later told the board.

Dozens of cities around the country have magnet programs, and each has its own often-complicated method of enrolling students to ensure racial balance. But few, if any, do it like Pittsburgh.

Where there is less demand for programs, there are few problems. Parents simply show up the day of registration and fill out an application. In the more popular programs, though, 80% of the spaces are filled on a first-come, first-served basis by registering in person, not via mailed applications. Twenty percent are filled by lottery.

Ironically, the parents who stand in line for days would not have it any other way, saying the current system guarantees a school full of students with parents interested in education.

Making Sign-up Easy Opposed

“If you go to a lottery where you just have to fill out your name and mail it in, everybody would do it, including the parents who really never did care,” said Howard Siegel, 36, who stood in line with Cohn for six days to enroll his sixth-grader in a classical academy.

“It would dilute the system to allow just anyone in,” said Ron Charapp, 38, who enrolled his son in the same school.

Simply expanding magnet programs is not necessarily the way to temper their snowballing popularity, Wallace said. Not only do parents like the exclusive aspect of a magnet, but they also often will not enroll their children in a new program until it has proved its worth.

The superintendent said the enrollment procedures have to change, but he is not sure how.

“Somehow we need to preserve the strong, intense commitment by parents and yet do it in a way that doesn’t discriminate against people who can’t do what these folks can do,” he said. “And at this point, I don’t have an answer.”

Some parents choose magnets because they do not like the city schools to which their children would be assigned, and others simply want their children to attend an integrated school.

Many say they like the magnets because of their distinctive environments or curricula. Also, magnet schools usually have fewer students than regular schools.

‘No-Nonsense Environment’

“It is integration at its finest, and that warms the cockles of my liberal heart,” Cohn said.

“It’s a no-nonsense environment. They’re not going to have any discipline infractions. And it’s exciting. My wife and I spent a day in the language middle school, and we were enthralled. I didn’t even want to leave.”

For students interested in a particular field or style of learning, the magnets are an attractive alternative to conventional liberal arts-oriented studies.

Magnet kindergartens have become popular with single parents and families with two working spouses because they offer a full-day program rather than the usual half-day.

At the Homewood Montessori Elementary School, children learn at their own pace through a process of trial, error and self-correction using special learning materials. The system uses no letter grades or honor roll and encourages a non-competitive learning atmosphere.

Contracts Signed

At the traditional academies, students and parents sign a contract to abide by the school dress code of no T-shirts, tight clothes or regular blue jeans and the academy’s attendance and homework policies. In exchange, the principal agrees in writing to provide a safe, strict and caring environment.

The Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps magnet is confined to electives and extracurricular activities in which students learn leadership, map reading and current events.

Other programs, such as international studies, classical studies, high technology and practical arts, tailor the entire curriculum around the area of interest.

For example, English in the law and public service magnet emphasizes mysteries, detective novels and trial stories, and social studies focuses on government, politics and economics.

Biology in the international studies magnet is world ecology. English in the high-tech magnet emphasizes scientific writing.

Worry for Other Schools

Although Wallace is proud of the magnets, he worries that the regular neighborhood schools are being overlooked.

“The thing that concerns me is, a lot of parents don’t know about and have never set foot inside their neighborhood schools,” the superintendent said.

Last year the top elementary school in the city was not a magnet, but rather a small, regular school in a blue-collar neighborhood, Wallace said. The top middle school was a magnet, but the top high school in the city was not.

In addition, the district has produced four state Teachers of the Year in the last five years, and all were nominated from regular schools.

“Magnet schools are different,” Wallace said, “not better.”