The New York City Board of Education has instituted magnet educational programs in five city high schools offering special curricula not ordinarily available to secondary school students in their zoned high schools. Magnet courses were designed to assist high schools in their desegregation efforts and to reduce minority group isolation. The magnet programs were centered around themes: oceanogreaphy; practical nursing and premedical training; discovery and development (for underachieving, inner city students headed for college); communication arts; and medicine and the natural sciences. An evaluation of the five schools found that, in general, the program succeeded in encouraging students to engage in cooperative social interactions. The attendance data for the program participants indicated that attendance was generally high for the magnet school students although, as in the general school population, the attendance rate did decrease slightly over the course of the school year. The frequency of suspensions was low for students in the magnet programs. Finally, the achievement scores for participating students in reading and math did not meet the program objectives at any of the schools; this suggests that perhaps these measures were not appropriate for the assessment of program goals. (KH)