Impact Study of Magnet Schools

Decades after the Supreme Court declared racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional, concentration in schools by race, ethnicity, and poverty persists. The federal Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) supports districts and schools in their efforts to reduce minority group isolation and improve student achievement through increased school choice options for families. MSAP schools seek to attract a diverse set of students and provide high quality academic programs, typically by organizing recruitment and instruction around one or more themes. With growth in school choice more broadly and specifically in magnet schools since 2000, it is important to understand how well these federally-funded schools achieve their goals and how they work. This evaluation would have taken advantage of new opportunities to rigorously assess MSAP schools but with low burden. It drew on lotteries most MSAP districts now use to admit students to their magnet schools. By comparing the achievement and school characteristics of applicants who were and were not given a seat by chance, the study would have determined the impact of the MSAP and examine how specific school features related to effectiveness.