Magnet school funds wane

Support for magnet schools has foundered nationwide even though they continue to shine compared with other types of public schools, including charters, researchers concluded in a report released today.

Magnet programs, created to promote voluntary integration, have suffered court setbacks, stagnant federal funding and local budget cuts.

But they have frequently delivered on their purpose, while also producing many high-quality and sought-after academic programs, researchers with the UCLA-based Civil Rights Project concluded.

In fact, they said, magnets have a key advantage over charter schools, namely, integration: Magnets promote it, while charter schools can exacerbate racial isolation, study director Erica Frankenberg said.

A black student in a magnet school, for example, is far more likely to have classes with a white student than a black student in a charter school, she said. Specifically, about 70% of black charter school students had virtually no white classmates. Magnet schools do substantially better: 47.3% of black students attend magnets that are similarly segregated.

Both magnets and charter schools typically appeal to families seeking accelerated academics, special course offerings or other enticements. Charters are different in that they operate independently of local school districts, free from some regulations that apply to traditional schools. While many charter schools value diversity, the report found that a focus on integration makes a difference.

Magnet schools achieve ethnic balance by actively recruiting and by paying for student transportation, the report said. Charter schools don’t receive funding for transportation and rarely provide it, which means that low-income families can’t get to desirable charters in higher-income areas.

A market with educational choice produces competition, but not necessarily equity, said UCLA professor Gary Orfield, who co-directs the Civil Rights Project.

The market for good magnets in Los Angeles has long been oversubscribed: More than 25,000 applicants ended up on a waiting list last year, which has partly fueled the local explosion of charter schools. And for many parents, a quality program has outweighed any imperative for integration.

Crenshaw district parent Beverly Matthews has opted for the diversity of magnets. “You learn from each other, and, especially in Los Angeles, you have to learn to work together,” said Matthews, whose daughter Melissa attends the downtown Fashion Careers Magnet High School. Quality, she added, also has to be part of the equation: “I just found the magnets had high expectations for all. They usually had established programs and less turnover with your teachers, and they provided that support network.”

Other findings highlighted in the study:

* Nationally, magnets are more likely than charters to serve students of poverty -- of all ethnicities. In magnets, 57% more white students, 31% more Asians, 28% more Latinos and 19% more black students are from low-income families.

* Magnet schools still enroll twice as many students as the burgeoning charter-school movement nationwide, but funding to support them has stagnated. In 2008, federal magnet school funding was just over $100 million, compared with $200 million for charter schools. (President-elect Barack Obama has proposed doubling the amount for charter schools.)

* Free transportation for magnets is under assault by the nation’s budget woes. “Large districts in Alabama, Florida, Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Georgia and Wisconsin have all contemplated cutting or otherwise altering the transportation they provided to magnet school students,” according to the report. Magnet transportation in L.A. Unified costs $66.7 million.

The researchers also said that court decisions rejecting race-based integration have taken a toll on magnets. Some school districts have substituted integration based on where students live or based on family income, with varying success. Overall, however, “many magnet programs in this sample reported declining levels of integration,” the study’s authors wrote.

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howard.blume@latimes.com