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Helping students identify community issues.

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Noodletools How-To Create an Annotated Bibliography

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Noodletools How-To Create an Annotated Bibliography

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Purdue Owl Link-Interview and Survey Questions

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Purdue Owl Link-Interview and Survey Questions

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Creating Good Interview and Survey Questions
Summary:
Primary research involves collecting data about a given subject directly from the real world. This section includes information on what primary research is, how to get started, ethics involved with primary research and different types of research you can do. It includes details about interviews, surveys, observations, and analysis.

If you are conducting primary research using surveys or interviews, one of the most important things to focus on is creating good questions.

When creating questions you want to avoid:

Biased questions

Biased questions are questions that encourage your participants to respond to the question in a certain way. They may contain biased terminology or are worded in a biased way.

Biased question: Don't you agree that campus parking is a problem?

Revised question: Is parking on campus a problem?

Questions that assume what they ask

These questions are a type of biased question and lead your participants to agree or respond in a certain way.

Biased question: There are many people who believe that campus parking is a problem. Are you one of them?

Revised question: Do you agree or disagree that campus parking is a problem?

Double-barreled questions

A double-barreled question is a one that has more than one question embedded within it. Participants may answer one but not both, or may disagree with part or all of the question.

Double-barreled question: Do you agree that campus parking is a problem and that the administration should be working diligently on a solution?

Revised question: Is campus parking a problem? (If the participant responds yes): Should the administration be responsible for solving this problem?

Confusing or wordy questions

Make sure your questions are not confusing or wordy. Confusing questions will only lead to confused participants, which leads to unreliable answers.

Confusing questions: What do you think about parking? (This is confusing because the question isn't clear about what it is asking--parking in general? The person's ability to park the car? Parking on campus?) Do you believe that the parking situation on campus is problematic or difficult because of the lack of spaces and the walking distances or do you believe that the parking situation on campus is ok? (This question is both very wordy and leads the participant.)

Revised question: What is your opinion of the parking situation on campus?

Questions that do not relate to what you want to learn

Be sure that your questions directly relate to what it is you are studying. A good way to do this is to ask someone else to read your questions or even test your survey out on a few people and see if the responses fit what you are looking for.

Unrelated questions: Have you ever encountered problems in the parking garage on campus? Do you like or dislike the bus system?

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Interview and Survey Questions // Purdue Writing Lab

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Values play a key role in creating public policy. What do we believe about ourselves? What matters most to us? When strongly held values come into conflict, which are most important? Some values fit together well. Others are in conflict. People in the United States are constantly forced to choose among competing values in the ongoing debate about public policy. Most often, we think of values in connection with our personal lives. Our attitudes toward our families, friends, and communities are a reflection of our personal values. Values also play an important role in our civic life and influence our political beliefs. Identifying values is a way to understand the views of others, find common ground where it exists, and work together to find ways to form policy.

Objective

Students will:

Identify and prioritize values they hold.

Explore differences openly and engage in constructive civic dialogue.

Analyze how values inform perspectives on public policy.

Resources
Values Cards
The Activity in Action

Values and Public Policy Activity: Engaging in Civic Dialogue

Note: Be sure to establish a respectful classroom climate by reminding students about the difference between deliberation and debate, as demonstrated in the video above.The classroom provides an opportunity for students to collaboratively explore differing opinions and develop critical thinking skills. You may wish to remind the class that their opinions need not be predetermined by their peers or parents. In addition, how people prioritize values can change depending upon circumstances. Remind students to listen to their classmates with respect and an open mind.

In the Classroom

1. Focus Question

Begin by posing the question, "Why do people disagree on policy?" to the class. Invite students to share their responses. Inform students that in this lesson they will explore how values shape opinions about public policy.

2. Distribute Values Cards

Print and distribute the Values Cards for each student. Everyone should have the following cards:

3. Prioritizing Values

Read two values and instruct students to put these two cards in order, with the one on top being the one they consider most important. Read a third value. Now have them integrate this into their list. Repeat this process until each student has a stack of ten cards organized in a way that reflects his or her priorities.

You may wish to remind students that some of these words can mean different things to different people. Instead of facilitating deliberation over the meaning and importance of the values, guide students to focus on how this activity reveals that differing values make collective decision-making concerning public policy a challenge.

4. Debrief in small groups

Ask students in small groups of three to compare their rankings. How did they differ? Where were they similar? Did students define the values differently, in addition to ranking them differently?

5. Group Discussion

Bring the class back together to discuss. What was easy or difficult about the activity? Would any students like to report their conversations back to the class? Invite a few students to share which value they ranked first (or last) and ask them to explain their reasoning. Were students able to find some common ground across differently prioritized values?

Challenge students to identify public policy issues that they are concerned about. Have them identify how specific values influence their views about policy. Are there certain policies that students agree upon despite differently prioritized values? After students have made concrete links between values and policies, ask students to consider how constructive and respectful discussions can lead to some consensus.
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Values and Public Policy - Choices Program

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Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display Skip to Content Values play a key role in creating public policy. What do we believe about ourselves? What matters most to us? When strongly held values come into conflict, which are most important? Some values fit together well. Others are in conflict.

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Google Doc Project Citizen Project template

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Copy of Google Doc Project Citizen Project template

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The year was 1968. Martin Luther King had been assassinated, and American cities were erupting in flames because of King's violent death and the decades-long smoldering resentments from racism. In a small city far away from the churning ghettos of Detroit and D.C., a small public school was about to enter the racial hubbub and become part of education history.

Reminiscent of scenes from the movie and musical Fame, which featured the High School of Music & Art and became a model for magnet schools, young musicians sing and play in a bathroom at La Guardia High School in Manhattan.

That fall, McCarver Elementary in Tacoma, Washington, hung out its shingle inviting students from anywhere in the city to enroll, breaking the link between school assignments and residential location and becoming the nation's first "magnet" school. Thus began a nationwide experiment to integrate public schools using market-like incentives instead of court orders. (See sidebar, " In the Beginning.")

The following year, 1969, the country's second magnet school opened-this one, more appropriately, in Boston, soon to be an epicenter of the race-based school wars. But, like its West Coast counterpart, the William Monroe Trotter School, in Beantown's poor Roxbury section, was built as "a showcase for new methods of teaching"-enough of a showcase, it was hoped, to attract white children to a black neighborhood for their schooling. It was an odd idea, but one whose time seemed to have come. Within a decade there would be hundreds of such magnet schools all over the country.

The idea was simple enough: draw white students to predominantly black schools by offering a special education with a focus on a particular aspect of the curriculum, such as performing arts, or Montessori, or advanced math, science, and technology. Federal and state agencies, anxious to avoid the growing messiness of coercive integration measures like forced busing, directed new resources toward these magnets, encouraging their pioneering academic programs and giving grants for new facilities. Glossy brochures were mailed to parents and press releases to local media. The hope was that these well-funded, themed schools would ignite a passion for learning as well as spark a movement to voluntarily integrate schools.

The names alone give a sense of the new schools' range and optimism-the Thomas Pullham Creative and Performing Arts magnet (in Prince George's County, Maryland), the Copley Square International High magnet (in Boston), the School 59 Science magnet (also called the "Zoo School," in Buffalo), the Greenfield Montessori magnet school (in Milwaukee), the Central High School Classical Greek/Computers Unlimited magnet high school (in Kansas City). Even older and well-established "examination schools," such as Boston Latin and City Honors (in Buffalo), would soon claim magnet status to avail themselves of new students and additional funds.
An Early Experiment in "Choice"
The first magnets appeared as the school desegregation battles were heating up. In 1969, the year William Monroe Trotter opened in Boston, a federal court ordered the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina to use busing to desegregate its schools. The use of crosstown busing to accomplish desegregation was unprecedented-and the case went right to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the highly controversial forced integration program in 1971. A federal district court in Boston, paying insufficient attention to the ideals of the Trotter school, introduced a forced busing program in 1974 that set off demonstrations and riots. The court order also prompted the city's educators to include magnets in their formal, citywide forced busing plan the following year. Thus was born the first "forced busing plan with magnet options."

Coming as they did, in the midst of several different national desegregation crises, early magnet schools offered a relatively uncontroversial-and peaceful-means of integrating schools. And the magnet movement got an early boost from two federal district court decisions in 1976, in the aftermath of the discord in Charlotte and Boston. In approving magnet-driven, voluntary desegregation programs in Buffalo and Milwaukee, the courts seemed more than willing to accept reasonable alternatives to the forced dissolution of geography-based school assignments.

Though it was another decade before the first southern school district (in Savannah) was allowed to desegregate its school system with a voluntary magnet-school plan, the new schools were soon opening almost everywhere-or, at least, everywhere that public school systems needed to stem the white-flight resegregation that was overtaking many urban school districts, mostly in the North. By 1981, there were some 1,000 such magnet schools in the United States; by 1991, there were over 2,400. (See Figure 1.)

These new schools proved to be a remarkably robust and popular trend in school choice. In a study I undertook in 1989, I found that 12 percent of the elementary and middle school magnet programs in my sample specialized in basic skills and/or individualized teaching; 11 percent offered foreign language immersion; 11 percent were science-, math-, or computer-oriented; 10 percent catered to the gifted and talented and 10 percent to the creative and performing arts; 8 percent were traditional, back-to-basics programs (demanding, for instance, dress codes and contracts with parents for supervision of homework); 7 percent were college preparatory; 7 percent were early childhood and Montessori. (The remaining preferences, each under 7 percent, included multicultural/international, life skills/ careers, and ecology/environment.) At the high school level, the programs tended to be either career-oriented (medical careers, law and criminal justice, communications and mass media, hotel and restaurant) or schools with some sort of entrance criteria. The Magnet Schools Association of America, based in Washington, D.C., reports a similar distribution of program themes in today's magnet schools.

My analyses of the success of these magnets in actually attracting whites indicate that school structure and racial composition was important. Predictably, the most popular magnet school structure was a dedicated magnet, where everyone in the school had chosen it and all were in the magnet program. These "perfect" magnets, however, were the least common, because creating them requires that an entire school be emptied out and children assigned elsewhere or a new school be built. The next most popular magnet structure, and the most common today, is a program-within-a-school. Only students who chose the magnet program are in it, but there is also a neighborhood population assigned to the school that is not in the magnet program. The racial composition of the magnet program is different from the school that houses it and is usually around 50 percent white. The least-popular magnet structure in black neighborhoods is a "whole-school-attendance-zone" magnet: everyone in the school is in the program, but the school has a neighborhood population assigned to it. That these schools and their magnet programs tend to have a racial composition closer to that of the neighborhood-majority minority-only reduces their attractiveness to whites. However, according to most surveys, although whites prefer majority white schools, a sizable, albeit smaller, number will choose schools where whites make up somewhat less than half of the student body.
Staying Power and an Evolving Mission
Even as courts across the country began releasing school districts such as Kansas City, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Savannah, Buffalo, and Boston from long-running desegregation orders during the 1990s, magnet schools continued to thrive. My 1991 randomized national sample of 600 school districts indicated that the 2,400 magnet schools in the United States were operating in 229 different school districts.

And it would appear that their ranks continue to swell despite the declining number of districts operating under court-ordered desegregation plans. The directory published by the Magnet Schools Association of America lists more than 3,000 magnet or theme-based schools as members.

With desegregation waning as a public goal, however, magnet schools have maintained support by attaching themselves to the school-choice movement. For instance, the Magnet Schools of America web site now makes a classic choice-based argument on behalf of magnet schools-that being allowed to choose a school will result in improved satisfaction that translates into better achievement. Thus, although proponents of magnet schools have not disavowed the desegregation goal that is the program's roots, they currently place almost equal emphasis on magnets as instruments of school choice.

One of the reasons for the sustained growth of magnet schools is the federal government's steady financial support for the idea. Magnet schools were originally funded as tools of desegregation under the Emergency School Assistance Act from 1972 to 1981. In 1981 they were folded into the Chapter 2 block-grant program, but explicit federal support for magnet schools as desegregation tools resumed in 1985 with the authorization of the Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP), included in the Education for Economic Security Act. Under the new program, however, magnet schools not only had to aid desegregation, but also had to focus on improving the quality of education in order to qualify for funds. The Magnet Schools Assistance Program still exists, now run by the Office of Innovation and Improvement in the Department of Education, and with the same twin goals of fostering integration and choice.

Funding for magnet schools is also part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, housed in the portion of the law bannered "Promoting Informed Parental Choice and Innovative Programs." Funding has not kept pace with either inflation or the growth in magnet schools, but neither has it withered away. (See Figure 2.) The MSAP appropriation was $75 million in 1984, rose to $108 million in 1994, and remained at $108 million in 2004. Though the program falls under the law's choice provisions, the federal government still considers magnets an important aspect of desegregation policy, defining a magnet school as one that "offers a special curriculum capable of attracting substantial numbers of students of different racial backgrounds."
The Money Bite
Perhaps the greatest challenge to magnet schools now comes from fiscal constraints at the state level. Where desegregation has become a secondary goal, resource-rich magnet schools are often a target for cuts when money is tight. States such as Missouri, Ohio, and Michigan have challenged court-ordered desegregation plans in order to reduce their financial and legal liability. But even states such as Massachusetts, Maryland, and California that were never parties to a desegregation lawsuit have been cutting funds for magnet schools. The Prince George's County, Maryland, school district, for example, eliminated magnet programs at 33 schools in the fall of 2004 because of state funding cutbacks. The only theme programs that will be kept are the Montessori, French immersion, and creative and performing arts, and they will no longer be called magnets.

Indeed, there is probably no school district with an extensive system of magnet programs that has not closed at least one or two magnets because of a budget crunch. In fact, many magnets are the victims of their own success: by the 1990s most neighborhood schools had the science labs and computer technology that had once made magnets unique. Even McCarver in Tacoma removed "magnet" from its name in 1998 and, as a result of No Child Left Behind, became a School in Need of Improvement.

Connecticut is an important exception to this trend, but that is because since 1996, the entire state has been under a state supreme court order to desegregate. Using a complicated formula approved by the court, the state funds magnet schools that accept students from several different districts (at a minimum there must be two) at a per-pupil rate that increases as the number of districts sending students increases-an attempt to bring central-city minority students and white suburban students together in the same school. Thus the scheme eschews outright racial quotas, but achieves some of the diversity that quotas would create.
Challenges for the Future
Though finances will always be a magnet school's primary concern, the greatest threat to the magnet system going forward is the same as that which gave magnets their early jump-start: the courts. Even the No Child Left Behind Act's requirement that school districts adopt a voluntary desegregation plan, for instance, may conflict with legal precedents set in most federal appeals courts. In 2001 only the federal appeals court covering the states of Connecticut, New York, and Vermont had upheld the use of race in student assignment or magnet school admissions in school districts not already under court order; it did so on the grounds that the state had a compelling interest in racial diversity. But even in that circuit, several school districts and one state (Connecticut) have continued to avoid the use of racial quotas in magnet admissions because they believe using them invites a legal challenge.

The 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing the use of racial quotas at the University of Michigan-but approving the use of race as one of many factors in admissions decisions-has had little impact on magnet schools, mainly because most had already abandoned the use of quotas. And most school districts now recognize that using explicit racial quotas in magnet admissions when desegregation orders have been lifted is risky. When the court-ordered desegregation plan in Prince George's County was ended in 2002, the superintendent formed a panel of experts on magnet schools that was thought to be politically and ideologically diverse. Our task was to figure out what to do about magnet school admissions criteria.

All of us were in agreement that race could no longer be used in magnet admissions. We devised a plan in which the district was divided into three subdistricts of roughly similar racial and socioeconomic balance. Students, regardless of their race, could choose any magnet school in their subdistrict. We hoped that racially diverse student bodies would result from the individual choices of students, but there was no way to guarantee it. Since then, as noted above, state funding cuts have prompted the district's administration to dramatically reduce the number of magnet schools, keeping only the most popular. Similar choices are being made in other districts, where some magnets survive while others are being closed.

Districts throughout the country are responding in one of two ways: either adopting a race-blind system of admissions, thus converting the magnet to a themed school of choice; or constructing a system whereby race is only one of several factors considered in admission. The former is more likely to happen in school districts that have very few whites left and in districts that have had strong appeals court opinions rejecting the use of race altogether. The latter is more likely to occur in school districts such as Fort Wayne, Indiana, that have enough whites left to actually integrate a number of magnet schools and where there has been no strong circuit court decision rejecting the use of race.

It is remarkable, perhaps, that despite the reduction in state funding and the elimination of explicit racial quotas, the total number of magnet schools has not declined. I would suggest three reasons for their resilience. First, the great triumph of the civil-rights movement was its success in getting whites to support the principle of racial diversity in the schools. In districts that still have enough whites to make integration feasible, magnet schools are viewed as an effective way to achieve that diversity, even in districts where court orders have been lifted or never existed. Second, magnet schools have been incorporated into the school choice movement as a means of improving achievement and into No Child Left Behind as a way of increasing the opportunities available to children in low-performing schools. Third, parents like school choice. Although undoubtedly there are some who enroll their children in a theme-based school in order to enable them to pursue a passion, most parents are probably interested in theme-based education as a means of igniting a passion. Magnets have thus developed strong constituencies locally and nationally and, for the foreseeable future, remain an important, if less often noticed, feature of the American education landscape.
Christine Rossell is a professor of political science at Boston University.

In the Beginning
How a Small City in the Pacific Northwest Invented Magnet Schools by Alex Sergienko
Every once in a while things work out. That's what it seems like today, as I look back to 1968, when my Tacoma, Washington, school district opened a magnet school.

Though Tacoma had only about 7,000 blacks-out of a total population of about 160,000-our minority housing, like that in many cities, was concentrated in one area and served by schools then in violation of our state's de facto segregation rule. The worst "offender" was McCarver Elementary, which was 91 percent African-American.

In fact, we had begun work on segregation issues several years earlier. People were coming to school board meetings complaining about it, and one prominent board member was adamant about integration. We also had a citizens committee, with two African-American members, actively seeking solutions. And, like other cities, we had some racial disturbances in Tacoma after Martin Luther King's assassination.

We knew we had to do something, but we also wanted alternatives to the coercive methods of integration, such as forced busing, that we saw being talked about elsewhere. That's when we stumbled on an article about someone in Pittsburgh advocating the establishment of a school that would do something so well that students would want to enroll. They called it a "magnet school." I'd never heard the term, but suddenly we envisioned McCarver as a school of excellence-good enough to pull in white students from the more affluent neighborhoods. We wrote a proposal, called the "Exemplary Magnet Program," and in the summer of 1968 we received a $200,000 Title III grant to make it happen.

We then mounted a huge recruitment effort, enlisting counselors from our summer program to make home visits (to talk to parents) and had administrators make calls to the district's best teachers. We said again and again that we would use exemplary practices, such as team teaching and "continuous progress"-and it worked. Some very good teachers signed up. And we brought in the most popular principal, then at the best elementary school in town, to run things.

With luck, a lot of work, and some key support from members of the upscale North End community, we were able to draw kids from all over, even from suburban schools on the other side of Puget Sound. And we opened that September with a minority enrollment of 64 percent, a 27-point turnaround in just four months. Instead of 50 white kids, we had almost 200.

By 1970, African-American enrollment at McCarver was less than 50 percent, and we had a waiting list for parents seeking to enroll their children.

After 36 years, I'm still struck by what we were able to get done. It is wonderful to think that good things can be accomplished in this world.
Alex Sergienko was an assistant superintendent of schools in Tacoma when McCarver started its magnet program. His grandson Max is a 7th grader at a magnet school, in Portland, Oregon, with "a Japanese emphasis."

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The year was 1968. Martin Luther King had been assassinated, and American cities were erupting in flames because of King's violent death and the decades-long smoldering resentments from racism. In a small city far away from the churning ghettos of Detroit and D.C., a small public school was about to enter the racial hubbub and become part of education history.

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The following 38 pages are in this category, out of 38 total. This list may not reflect recent changes ( learn more).

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17 out of 21 counties

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This story is part of "N.J.'s hardest-to-get-into high schools," an NJ Advance Media special report on the rise of specialized public high schools for top students around the state.
ROCKAWAY -- What is the top public high school in New Jersey?

Millburn High School? Princeton? West Windsor-Plainsboro?

If you guessed any of those schools or another traditional high school, you're wrong.

New Jersey's best - and most exclusive -- public high school may just be tucked inside a small, brick school annex on a hilltop in Rockaway. Inside, about 100 of Morris County's smartest students are working in engineering labs and taking college-level math and science classes.

Students here compete to get a chance to walk these hallways. More than 200 took the admissions test and sat through interviews to land one of 26 coveted spots in the freshman class - making the specialized high school as hard to get into as an Ivy League college.

The students averaged a staggering 2,213 (out of 2,400) on the SAT last year, among the highest in the state. Last year's graduates averaged more than $38,500 each in accepted college scholarships to schools like Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pennsylvania.

"The opportunities I have here are really unique," said Shalaka Madge, 18, a senior headed to Princeton University. "It's an experience very, very few high schoolers can get."

Newsweek named the school not only the best high school in New Jersey last year, but the second best public school in the nation.

The school is Morris County's Academy for Mathematics, Science and Engineering.

You're not the only who may have never heard of it.
A look inside New Jersey's other school system.
Morris County's Academy for Mathematics, Science and Engineering is one of New Jersey's growing number of specialized public high schools run by the county vocational technical districts. The high schools - which specialize in everything from engineering to performing arts - have boomed over the last few decades.

Though many students and parents may not know they exist, these rigorous schools have become among the best public schools in New Jersey.

Many students hear about the county-run high schools in middle school and take tests in the 8 th grade to apply. If they are lucky enough to get in, they bypass their local high schools and are bused to the specialized high school with other top students from around their county.

Officials and students at the schools -- which have names like High Tech High School, Academy for Information Technology and Performing Arts Academy -- spend a lot of their time trying to explain the purpose of the schools.

"We constantly battle misconceptions about vocational schools," said Gwendolyn Ryan, assistant superintendent of Union County's vo-tech district and former principal of Union County Magnet High School.

The vo-tech districts still have classes for future welders, hairdressers and auto mechanics. But a growing part of their mission is now to run schools designed for super-smart students headed to top colleges.
The county-run magnet schools were started out of a need to attract more students.
In the 1990s, interest in traditional vo-tech subjects, started to wane in some counties.

So, the vo-tech districts posed a question: What if we offered programs that catered to top students headed to high-tech careers?

"County vocational schools, unlike a typical school district, they don't have any resident students. They have to generate their enrollment every year. So, they need to change with the times," said Judy Savage, executive director of the New Jersey Council of County Vocational-Technical Schools, a group representing the state's 21 districts.

The idea wasn't new. New York City has been running elite high schools, including Stuyvesant High School and Bronx High School of Science, for a century. Other cities and states, including Boston, Chicago and Virginia, also run specialized high schools with rigorous admissions tests for the region's most gifted students.

In the 1990s, Monmouth, Union and Bergen were among the counties in New Jersey that began to experiment with the idea in schools like High Tech High School, Union County Magnet School and Bergen County Academies.

The idea gradually began to spread to New Jersey's other counties. Some started stand-alone specialized high schools focused on science, math, engineering, computer science or other subjects. Other vo-tech districts started special programs or "schools within schools" for top students.
Everything is a learning experience, even gym.
Walk into Union County Magnet High School in Scotch Plains and one of the first rooms you see off the lobby is the new "maker space." The school gutted its old multi-media room and filled it with 3-D printers, robotics equipment and tens of thousands of dollars in high-tech machinery for its engineering students to play with.

Across the courtyard, students in the neighboring Academy for Information Technology are hunkered down over their computers in a student-run "Hack Shack," where they take turns teaching each other everything from the latest Java coding tricks to the best way to crimp an ethernet cord.

"My neighbor was in this school. He showed me his homework one day. I said, 'Wow, they are doing cool stuff over there. I have to get there,'" said Stephen Cropper, 17, a senior from New Providence who helps oversee the "Hack Shack".

Union County's sprawling campus in Scotch Plains now has 1,600 students in five specialized high schools, all surrounding a single courtyard. In the Academy for Allied Health Sciences building, students spend the equivalent of their gym class walking on a bank of treadmills in a high-tech lab while their classmates practice monitoring their heart rates on EKG machines.
How many of these specialized schools are there?
There are now 20 stand-alone specialized high schools and more than 60 programs and "schools within schools" run by New Jersey's vo-tech districts, according to the New Jersey Council of County Vocational-Technical Schools.

They are in every county in the state, except Essex, Warren, Sussex and Cumberland counties.

(Some individual schools districts have also started versions of academies tailored for top students, including McNair Academic High School in Jersey City and Elizabeth High School in Elizabeth.)

Some are called magnets schools. Others are dubbed career academies or high tech high schools. Some critics have called them "publicly-funded private schools."

All are built around the same idea: Create a school with small classes, rigorous courses and top teachers. Require students to get real-world career experience through internships and other projects. Admit only the top students in the county.
The rest of the world is beginning to notice New Jersey's hard-to-get-into high schools.
The success of the county-run high schools is reflected in national rankings.

Newsweeks' latest list of the Top 10 high schools in the country includes three of New Jersey's county-run specialized high schools: Morris County's Academy for Mathematics, Science and Engineering (#2 in the country), Union County Magnet High School (#4) and Middlesex County's Academy for Science, Math and Engineering Technology (#10).

U.S. News and World Report selected Monmouth County's High Tech High School as the No. 1 science, technology, math and engineering-focused high school in the nation in its latest rankings.

The county-run high schools also dominate lists of New Jersey's top schools. The top 12 New Jersey schools with the highest average SAT scores last year were all specialized vo-tech high schools.

Though supporters of traditional public schools say the comparisons are unfair. The county-run magnet schools have few, if any, students classified with disabilities and minimal low-income students. So, their test scores will always skew higher than even the best of New Jersey's traditional public high schools, the critics say.
Even former governors try to get kids in.
The calls come into the office of the Union County Vocational-Technical Schools all the time. The callers all have the same goal: to get a kid into Union County Magnet High School or one of the county's other highly-competitive career academies.

Sometimes the calls come from zealous parents, other times from well-meaning principals or teachers touting the merits of a student they feel deserves a seatin the specialized schools.

"Actually, we got a phone call from a former governor," said Peter Capodice, the superintendent of Union County's vo-tech district. "We hear from state senators, from congressmen, from local politicians, assemblymen, a county sheriff. You name it, they all call us. They say, 'I have a real good person.'"

School officials hear out the callers, but politely say no one can get into the popular schools through a back door. Everyone has to attend an information session in the 8 th grade to learn about the schools. Then, they take an admissions test to prove they deserve a spot.

"We just use the points. It's strictly by the numbers," Capodice said.
How do students find out about these schools?
The demand to get into the specialized high schools continues to rise as the districts recruit students by sending fliers and counselors to local middle schools.

Most students who get in say they heard about the schools through word of mouth.

Andrea Diaz, 16, a junior from Linden, said she wanted to get into Union County Magnet High School from the moment her mother first told her about it.

"I wanted to get in so bad," Diaz said.

Once she arrived, she was surprised by the amount of work expected of her and the intensity of her high-achieving classmates.

"I went from a town that didn't have a great education to here," Diaz said, standing in a lab surrounded by 3-D printers and other high-tech robotics equipment. "There have been days I've been stressed out . . . But I wouldn't go back."
The teachers bring an extraordinary amount of experience to the table.
After more than 30 years as an engineer, Marc Weinstein was ready to retire from his job doing business modeling at Alcatel-Lucent.

A colleague told him about a job opening for an engineering teacher at her old high school - Middlesex County's Academy for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies.

"I was trying to figure out what to do with the second chapter with my life," said Weinstein, who is now in his third year teaching civil and mechanical engineering. "It was the perfect match."

Because of their highly-specialized classes, many of the vo-tech academies attract former industry professionals willing to teach. Many are retired or take a pay cut to take the unionized jobs, which require a teaching certificate.
Who pays for all of this?
Specialized high schools are not charter schools, which have drawn intense criticism from some in New Jersey for drawing money away from traditional public schools.

Instead, the specialized high schools are funded by the county vo-tech school districts.They are funded by the state, county taxpayers and a small amount of federal funding.

If those three pieces don't contain enough money to fund the districts' schools, the vo-tech schools have the option of funding the last piece by charging tuition, usually about $6,000, to the local school district for each student they sent to the county-run schools.

Local districts also fund the buses to transport students to the vo-tech schools.

"This is actually a very cost-efficient model," said Scott Moffitt, superintendent of Morris County's vo-tech district.

Morris County's vo-tech district spent about $20,444 per pupil in total spending, including about $9,234 per student on classroom instruction, according to the 2015-2016 state education spending data.

By comparison, Mendham Township, one of the wealthier school districts in the county, spent about $27,205 per pupil. Dover, the poorest municipality in the county, spent about $15,766 per pupil.
Expect to see a lot more of these schools.
County vo-tech districts say the boom in specialized high schools will continue. Superintendents say they have ideas for new career academies and plans to expand existing schools.

Morris County is expanding the Academy for Math, Science and Engineering, admitting 48 new students a year, instead of 26.

Union County's vo-tech district, which has maxed out space on its Scotch Plains campus with five separate specialized high schools, is also exploring options for new schools.

"Do we want to? Yes we do," said Capodice, superintendent of Union County's vo-tech district. "We have some ideas about a new academy . . . We have so much to offer. I don't think we'll ever saturate the market here."
Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find her at " on Facebook.

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N.J.'s hardest-to-get-into public high schools, explained

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This story is part of "N.J.'s hardest-to-get-into high schools," an NJ Advance Media special report on the rise of specialized public high schools for top students around the state. ROCKAWAY -- What is the top public high school in New Jersey? Millburn High School? Princeton? West Windsor-Plainsboro?

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In the 1960's in the United States, some options to traditional public schools sprang up as a protest against racially segregated schools. The history of magnet schools is tied to the 1960's protest over school desegregation and the educational reform model of public school choice as a way to address educational inequity.
by Dr. Donald Waldrip For more on the history of the Civil Rights Movement and the impact of magnet education, read the farewell address of MSA founder, Dr. Donald R. Waldrip at the 2000 Magnet Schools conference, Tucson, AZ
In 1974, the late, great Mario Fantini, who is responsible for some of the early research presented here, said that all meaningful reform of education was tied to the movement toward public schools of choice. Twenty-four years later, his statement still rings true. Although school systems operate all over the world, what we really need today is a system of schools - unique schools. Magnet schools are based on the premise that all students do not learn in the same ways, that if we find a unifying theme or a different organizational structure for students of similar interest, those students will learn more in all areas. In other words, if a magnet school voluntarily attracts students and teachers, it will succeed because, more than for any other reason, those in attendance want to be there. They will have chosen that school. When a parent chooses a school for his or her young child, that school is more likely to succeed for that child than would one to which that child was assigned.

We have always had options for children and parents though. Originally, parents with the financial means could send their children to parochial (church) schools, to private tutors, or to private schools. If wealthy enough, they could send their children away to dormitory schools - then called private academies - from age eight to eighteen. We still have those options for wealthy Americans, and many still choose these options, but some who can afford to send their children to any school instead choose magnet schools, which are public schools and cost nothing to attend.

During the 1960's, some of these options in the private sector responded to the growing aspirations of countercultures or groups with new and different life styles. For the most part, these schools were freer in form and substance than the public schools. Some went even so far as to allow the learner complete charge of his or her own learning; i.e. what is learned, when, where, why, how, and with whom.

The number of these private-sector schools declined significantly in the 1970's, largely because of limited resources. Romantic, dedicated teachers working round-the-clock for substandard wages were trying to run schools on very little money. If these short-lived schools served a purpose, it was to show that other ways of educating learners were possible.

In the United States during the 1960's, some options to public schools sprang up as a protest against racially segregated schools. They emphasized the basic subjects of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but they also included the history of African Americans, what the civil rights movement was all about, and how schools could be tied to community needs. Some of these, called street academies, led to more permanent structures. Harlem Prep, for example, first funded by foundations, businesses, and industry, become one of the public schools of New York City.

Another development, based on intense interest in the British experience, was the so-called "open classroom," which was another response to rigidity of the public system. All of these trends brought to the attention of professional educators and other citizens the need for more variety in education, especially in public education.

About this time educational vouchers were first mentioned - for the most part by economists, not educators. Milton Friedman, for example, thought that education should be considered a part of the free marketplace with the learners and families as consumers. Mr. Friedman thought that having families shop around for the kind of school that best satisfied their tastes would result in increased options. Advocates also thought that this system of vouchers, that could be redeemed at any school, would help to equalize opportunities for the poor. The idea of vouchers originally applied to public schools only and had equity as a goal . Today vouchers apply to both public and private schools and are seen as a hazard to equality of opportunity between the "haves and havenots" because we know that public schools must accept all students. (With magnets, however, students may find the most acceptable place in which to receive an education.) With federal government support, many planning grants were made to public schools. At least one went beyond planning to implementation - Alum Rock, California. This system of public vouchers started in the early seventies.

In the late 1960's, school districts across America were being torn apart by resistance to forced desegregation of the schools. Many parents would move to a suburban district to keep from having their children bused to school away from the neighborhood. Others would choose private education for their children. School administrators and boards of education began to try to find a volunteer way to reduce racial isolation.

The first school designed to reduce racial isolation by offering a choice to parents was an elementary school in Tacoma, Washington, called McCarver. This was in 1968. In 1969, Trotter Elementary School, in the Boston, Massachusetts system, opened for the same reasons. Both of these first attempts offered a different organizational pattern. They guaranteed continuous progress education, in which students would progress at their own rates. Neither of these schools was called a magnet; rather they were referred to as "alternatives."

In 1970, with the assistance of $6 million from the federal government, Minneapolis, Minnesota, mounted an alternative experiment in the southeast section of the city. This district opened four elementary schools and one high school with different organizational designs. Of the four elementary schools, the least structured was referred to as "free," in which the students directed their own education. The second type was called "open," and had an informal classroom design. The third was "continuous progress," and the fourth a traditional approach, which Minneapolis called "contemporary." All four were successful. Why? More than likely because the teachers and students wanted to be there, and the parents of those students had chosen the schools for their own children.

Following the pattern established in Minneapolis, Haaren High School in New York City, with the assistance of the Urban Coalition, broke into smaller units with more personalized instruction. Also following the pattern established in the Minneapolis elementary schools, Berkeley, California, embarked on a full-scale alternative schools program, featuring basic skills centers, environmentally-oriented programs, independent contract curriculum with businesses, and more. The word magnet was still not being used, although these programs looked much like schools that are called magnets today.

Dallas, Texas, opened the first "super" high school in 1971. Designed around the concept of career strands, skyline High School attracted students of all kinds - rich, poor, Hispanic, African American, Asian, White - from all over the city. It even offered adult classes in the evenings. In fact the school rarely closed its doors. Some students came for a full-day program; others came for part-time; still others came after school.

It was about this time that Houston, Texas, in describing the effect of its Performing and Visual Arts School, said that it worked like a "magnet" in attracting students. The word appeared to catch on. By 1975 the term was being used to describe types of fiscal assistance contemplated by the federal government.

In 1973, Cincinnati opened a wide range of options, among them, the first Montessori school in the public sector and the first foreign language schools beginning in the primary grades. By 1980 most major cities had systems of magnets, but it was the federal courts that caused the greatest surge in magnet education.

Until the early seventies, federal district courts had routinely ordered school systems to mandatorily racially desegregate themselves. In declining to approve a multiple district solution to segregation in Detroit, the courts did approve special enrichment programs to help to overcome the effects of "past discrimination." Following this decision, almost every court order that mandated that schools desegregate had a voluntary component. This voluntary component became known as magnet schools. The courts discovered that by using a carrot instead of a stick more desegregation could take place, and, at the same time, the quality of education would improve.

Today magnet schools are still used to reduce racial isolation, but, they are more and more considered superior options within the public sector for all students, even in districts of primarily one race.

What have we learned?

that all students do not learn in the same ways; that if we take advantage of a student's interest and aptitude, that student will do better in subjects unrelated to his/her reasons for choosing the school; that choice itself will result in improved satisfaction that translates into better achievement; that every child can learn and it is our job to offer enough options so that parents of all children (or students themselves) will have the opportunity to choose the programs best suited to them.

Emerson said that there are as many ways to God as there are people. We in magnet education believe that there are as many ways to a quality education as there are children and youth. It is up to us as educators to design those programs that will make the match between program and learner as effective as possible.

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In the 1960's in the United States, some options to traditional public schools sprang up as a protest against racially segregated schools. The history of magnet schools is tied to the 1960's protest over school desegregation and the educational reform model of public school choice as a way to address educational inequity.

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View the 2020-21 directory of the top 97 magnet public schools in Maryland. Find rankings, test scores, reviews and more. Read about great schools like: Lansdowne High & Academy Of Finance, Randallstown High School and Charles Herbert Flowers High School.

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Credit... The New York Times Archives

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

Before 1985, Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md., had a decent but undistinguished science curriculum, offering its 1,800 students the standard advanced placement courses and producing a modest annual crop of regional science contest winners.

But since Blair began a mathematics, science and computer magnet program eight years ago, the public high school has drawn top-flight students from throughout Montgomery County while gaining national attention. The school produced three of the 40 finalists in this year's Westinghouse Science Talent Search, the nation's most prestigious math and science competition for high school students, after having two finalists in each of the previous two years.

Two New York City schools, Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant High School, which in years past produced "Westie" winners in droves, had only one finalist each this year.

The 10 winners of this year's Westinghouse competition will be announced here on Monday. A $40,000 scholarship is the first prize. Lure for Whites and Asians

Blair "has exceeded my wildest expectations," said Paul Vance, the superintendent for Montgomery County public schools. "I have never seen a high school's image turn around so quickly."

The enriched math, science and computer program at Blair was designed to lure whites and Asians into the predominantly black and Hispanic school district, which is in the part of the county that abuts Washington. The county is more than 75 percent white.

In the early 1980's, the Montgomery County School Board faced strong community pressure to desegregate Blair, including threats of lawsuits. The board responded with a survey to find out what kind of specialized curriculum would lead parents to send their children to a school outside the mostly white districts.

A science program proved the most enticing. Dr. Michael Haney, the program's first coordinator and its primary architect, suspects that the prospect of a fancy laboratory excited many parents. "Parents understand that a special science program demands special equipment," he said. Low Minority Enrollment

There are 377 students in the Blair magnet program, only 58 of them from Blair's own school district. Black and Hispanic students make up less than 15 percent of those in the magnet program, though they make up 60 percent of the students at the regular high school.

The magnet students follow a diversified research-oriented course of study in math and science, but they participate in the school's regular curriculum for the humanities, physical education and the arts. More than 500 eighth-graders have applied for next year's 100 freshman openings. Selection is based on grades, standardized test scores and the completion of algebra by the eighth grade.

With extra start-up money provided by the county and state, Dr. Haney outfitted the program with sophisticated technology, including 60 microcomputers for the computer laboratory and chromatographs and advanced spectraphotometers for the chemistry laboratory. The annual budget for equipment and materials, about $78,000, is more than twice that of the regular science department.

James Redos, the chairman of the regular science department, believes that the equipment, particularly the computers, gives students in the magnet program a substantial competitive edge in national science contests. "Westinghouse," he said, "is hot on computers."

All three of Blair's Westinghouse finalists, in fact, used computers in their projects. One of them, Elizabeth Mann, showed how to use supercomputers to store large blocs of data more efficiently. The other two finalists, Steve Chien and Wei-Hwa Huang, used computers to calculate certain theorems for their expansions of popular mathematical games. 'Home' Student a Winner

Miss Mann is one of the few magnet students who lives within walking distance of the school, while Mr. Chien and Mr. Huang spend more than an hour a day getting to and from the school. All three are seniors.

Dr. Haney and all three finalists agreed that the program's heavy emphasis on research was the most valuable part of the curriculum and the aspect that best prepared them for the Westinghouse competition.

Under the magnet program, juniors are required to work on a two-year research project under the tutelage of a faculty adviser and, frequently, an outside mentor. The program has its own research coordinator to help students find sources and outside scholars, who often come from Washington institutions like the National Institutes of Health.

"If I'd gone to my home school, I doubt very much that I'd have ever done a research project," Mr. Chien said. "My home school doesn't encourage that kind of thing. Blair makes you believe that research is something you should and can do, rather than something you might happen to do."

"This program isn't like others where you read the books, do the labs, and answer the questions," Mr. Huang said. "This program tells you what real science work is like."

But some experts fear that such magnet programs send a troubling message to most minorities, because they may suggest that academically challenging programs are more likely to attract white and Asian students than black and Hispanic ones.

"The image is, the fewer blacks and Latinos in it, the more elite the program," said Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a professor and psychiatrist at Harvard University who specializes in the psychological health of minority children. "You have to have the black and Latino students represented in adequate and significant numbers."

Phillip Gainous, the principal of Blair, said he was aware of that hazard and recently tried to step up the recruitment of black, Hispanic and female students for the program.

Dr. Poussaint and other scholars also fear that the system, while set up to integrate the school, may produce "in-house segregation."

While many students in the magnet program said this was true, some said the feeling of separation had been overcome by the students, who participate in extracurricular activities and take electives outside the program.

Still, among the regular students, Mr. Chien said: "There is some animosity toward the program, because we have better funding. It's almost like a class disparity within the school."

Magnet teachers and administrators are acutely aware of this rift. To diminish it, the program has made its technological resources available to other students, though magnet students have first priority. In addition, a broad array of elective courses offered by the magnet program is open to everyone.

Dr. Vance, the superintendent, said the Blair magnet program had changed more than the academic face of the school. "Ten years ago," he said, "youngsters weren't proud to say they went to Montgomery Blair. Today, you can't believe the school's high spirit and enthusiasm."

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In a Minority District in Maryland, A Magnet School That Reall Draws (Published 1993)

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This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

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Check e-mail ePayStub español | 中文 | français | tiếng Việt | 한국어 | አማርኛ

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Group says new processes discriminate against Asian students

A Montgomery County nonprofit this week filed a federal lawsuit against the local school district, alleging it discriminates against Asian students when making admissions decisions for middle school magnet programs.

In the 83-page complaint, the Association for Education Fairness - a local organization of mostly Asian parents - argues that recent changes to the admissions process for MCPS' four middle school magnet programs were "targeted to reduce the percentage of Asian-American students who enroll ... with the ultimate goal of racially balancing these schools according to the racial demographics of Montgomery County."

The group argues that the changes violate the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, which requires jurisdictions to treat all individuals in similar circumstances equally.

MCPS had not provided a comment in response to the lawsuit as of 5 p.m. Thursday.

A report to the school board in 2016 found disparities in enrollment and acceptance rates at the four magnet (gifted and talented) programs, with white and Asian students admitted at greater rates than their peers.

In the 2013-14 school year, the programs' enrollment was 47% white, 34% Asian, 8% Black and 4% Hispanic, according to the report.

In response, the consultants who conducted the report recommended a slate of changes to the admissions process, including implementing a new consideration: how many students from their home schools are admitted to special programs.

Students are considered less favorably for a seat if they have 20 or more gifted classmates at their home schools. District officials have said students at a school with a large population of advanced students are better suited to work together there, whereas advanced students who don't have similarly skilled classmates at their school have a greater need for a magnet program.

The report also recommended considering non-cognitive measures in admissions decisions, including "motivation and persistence." Also, rather than having parents initiate the selection process, MCPS began universal screening for admission.

The Association for Education Fairness wrote in its lawsuit that, while Black and Hispanic students have "benefited from the changes," Asian students have lost "more than a fifth of the seats at each program" since the changes took effect in 2017.

The group asks the federal court to issue a permanent injunction, prohibiting MCPS from continuing to use the changed admissions processes.

In March 2019, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into allegations similar to the ones raised in this week's lawsuit.

The Washington Post reported at the time that federal officials received 10 complaints raising concerns about the magnet program.

The Office of Civil Rights website lists the investigation as still open. A spokesperson declined to comment on Thursday afternoon.
Caitlynn Peetz can be reached at caitlynn.peetz@bethesdamagazine.com
***
Editor's note: Bethesda Beat is keeping the comments thread closed for stories and topics that tend to attract the most inappropriate remarks. We encourage readers to email us their thoughts on this and other stories at editorial@bethesdamagazine.com to be considered for a letter to the editor in our Saturday newsletter. We require a name and hometown for publication. We also require a phone number (not for publication) for us to verify who wrote the letter.

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A Montgomery County nonprofit this week filed a federal lawsuit against the local school district, alleging it discriminates against Asian students when making admissions decisions for middle school magnet programs. In the 83-page complaint, the Association for Education Fairness - a local organization of mostly Asian parents - argues that recent changes to the admissions process for MCPS' four middle school magnet programs were "targeted to reduce the percentage of Asian-American students who enroll ...

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Official Probe into Asian American discrimination in MD

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Official Probe into Asian American discrimination in MD

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Group says new processes discriminate against Asian students

A Montgomery County nonprofit this week filed a federal lawsuit against the local school district, alleging it discriminates against Asian students when making admissions decisions for middle school magnet programs.

In the 83-page complaint, the Association for Education Fairness - a local organization of mostly Asian parents - argues that recent changes to the admissions process for MCPS' four middle school magnet programs were "targeted to reduce the percentage of Asian-American students who enroll ... with the ultimate goal of racially balancing these schools according to the racial demographics of Montgomery County."

The group argues that the changes violate the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, which requires jurisdictions to treat all individuals in similar circumstances equally.

MCPS had not provided a comment in response to the lawsuit as of 5 p.m. Thursday.

A report to the school board in 2016 found disparities in enrollment and acceptance rates at the four magnet (gifted and talented) programs, with white and Asian students admitted at greater rates than their peers.

In the 2013-14 school year, the programs' enrollment was 47% white, 34% Asian, 8% Black and 4% Hispanic, according to the report.

In response, the consultants who conducted the report recommended a slate of changes to the admissions process, including implementing a new consideration: how many students from their home schools are admitted to special programs.

Students are considered less favorably for a seat if they have 20 or more gifted classmates at their home schools. District officials have said students at a school with a large population of advanced students are better suited to work together there, whereas advanced students who don't have similarly skilled classmates at their school have a greater need for a magnet program.

The report also recommended considering non-cognitive measures in admissions decisions, including "motivation and persistence." Also, rather than having parents initiate the selection process, MCPS began universal screening for admission.

The Association for Education Fairness wrote in its lawsuit that, while Black and Hispanic students have "benefited from the changes," Asian students have lost "more than a fifth of the seats at each program" since the changes took effect in 2017.

The group asks the federal court to issue a permanent injunction, prohibiting MCPS from continuing to use the changed admissions processes.

In March 2019, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into allegations similar to the ones raised in this week's lawsuit.

The Washington Post reported at the time that federal officials received 10 complaints raising concerns about the magnet program.

The Office of Civil Rights website lists the investigation as still open. A spokesperson declined to comment on Thursday afternoon.
Caitlynn Peetz can be reached at caitlynn.peetz@bethesdamagazine.com
***
Editor's note: Bethesda Beat is keeping the comments thread closed for stories and topics that tend to attract the most inappropriate remarks. We encourage readers to email us their thoughts on this and other stories at editorial@bethesdamagazine.com to be considered for a letter to the editor in our Saturday newsletter. We require a name and hometown for publication. We also require a phone number (not for publication) for us to verify who wrote the letter.

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A Montgomery County nonprofit this week filed a federal lawsuit against the local school district, alleging it discriminates against Asian students when making admissions decisions for middle school magnet programs. In the 83-page complaint, the Association for Education Fairness - a local organization of mostly Asian parents - argues that recent changes to the admissions process for MCPS' four middle school magnet programs were "targeted to reduce the percentage of Asian-American students who enroll ...

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Achievement gap has gotten worse since the inception of Magnet schools.

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Lawsuit regarding admissions process for M.S. magnet programs. 

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Lawsuit regarding admissions process for M.S. magnet programs. 

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The Association for Education Fairness, a Montgomery County parent coalition, filed a lawsuit against MCPS on September 1, claiming that recent changes to the admissions process for the county's middle school magnet programs discriminate against Asian students.

The AEF alleges in its complaint that the county modified the magnet programs' admissions system in 2017 to reduce the number of Asian students in the four programs. The group is requesting that a federal court require MCPS to revert these changes, which include favoring students that go to under-performing schools in the admissions process. The admissions process has also amplified the importance of applicants' personalities, and tasked the school system with selecting academically-qualified students for the entrance exam, rather than having parents sign up their children.

MCPS adjusted its admissions procedures after a 2016 to the school board, which found that magnet programs admitted white and Asian students at higher rates than their Black and Hispanic classmates.

Magnet programs provide admitted students with accelerated instruction in either humanities or STEM, depending on the school.

Eighth grader Shreya Ohri applied to the Eastern Middle School humanities program in fifth grade, after the entrance process changes first took effect. Ohri, then a student at the magnet program at Chevy Chase Elementary School, had top test scores when she applied to the Eastern magnet program - but the admissions committee initially rejected her.

"That was definitely frustrating, as someone who really wanted to go to Eastern," Ohri said.

Ohri appealed the decision, after which the admissions team allowed her into the program. Only one other student from Chevy Chase received admission to Eastern without appealing their rejection that year, Ohri said.

Board of Education member Patricia O'Neill declined to comment, stating that she's not in a position to discuss litigation issues.

The recent lawsuit isn't the first complaint about the county's magnet program admissions. In March 2019, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights began investigating a number of objections from parents about the changes, markedly similar to the Association for Education Fairness' complaints. The investigation is ; there is no court date as of yet.

Richard Montgomery High School magnet program senior Amy Zhai said she believes the county needs to do more to ensure students have equal opportunities. Zhai, who graduated from Pyle Middle School, is a co-founder of the Asian American Progressive Student Union, an organization made up of many MCPS high school students.

"For a system as diverse as ours, we really need to focus on how we can expand these academic opportunities to every person who lives in our county," Zhai said. "A lot of Asian and white students are gaining admission, but a lot of these students obviously don't have to deal with that racial stereotype of underperforming in class, which affects actual academic performance."

Harvard University freshman Sophia Weng, a graduate of the Takoma Park Middle School magnet program ('16), echoed Zhai's sentiment. Weng said she believes the changes were made with the right intentions, but that they haven't been effective in ensuring equity within admissions.

"It didn't actually benefit minority students; it benefited white students who lived in different areas of the county," Weng said. "We have a long way to go before we can actually change the admissions process to be more fair toward students of color."

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Nonprofit sues MCPS over changes to middle school magnet program admissions

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The Association for Education Fairness, a Montgomery County parent coalition, filed a lawsuit against MCPS on September 1, claiming that recent changes to the admissions process for the county's middle school magnet programs discriminate against Asian students. The AEF alleges in its complaint that the county modified the magnet programs' admissions system in 2017 to...