What is a magnet school?

Question

What is a magnet school?

Answer 1

A Magnet school is usually located in an undesirable area. They recruit the best teachers and attempt to offer a little more than a regular public school. The main focus it to draw kids from better neighborhoods into the distressed areas.

Its one of those real good new ideas that are not very good after all.

It doesn't work.  

Answer 2

A public school offering a specialized curriculum...to a student body representing a cross section of the community.

Answer 3

A magnet school is a school that specializes in a certain area of education; i.e. the school I work for is a Performing Arts magnet. Kids from all over the district try out for dance, theater or music in order to be able to attend that school next school year.  

Answer 4

A Magnet school is part of the public school system. Usually students are zoned into their schools based on location. Students mostly go to the school which they are closest to (this may not always be true since boundaries can seem arbitrary). With Magnet schools, the public school system has created schools that exist outside of zoned school boundaries. The point of them is that they usually have something special to offer over a regular school which makes attending them an attractive choice to many students, thereby increasing the diversity of the student population within them (in theory).

Magnet schools are different from private or parochial schools in that they remain part of the public school system. They differ from Charter schools in that they remain part of the public school system bureaucratically. Charter Schools have a different organizational model (i.e. they have a charter that releases them from the regular school administration). Magnet schools operate under the same public school administration (they don’t operate on their own).

Distinguishing them from other public schools, Magnet schools usually have alternative or otherwise compelling modes of instruction. For example, you might find a Montessori Magnet school. A school doesn’t have to be a Magnet school to be a Montessori School. There are also public schools that aren’t Magnet schools which still offer fine academic experiences. Magnet schools differ from other public schools in that they receive additional funding to enable them to spend more money on their students, supplies, teachers, programs, etc.