Magnet schools are public schools that offer specialized subject themes or educational methodologies as a way of achieving desegregated student bodies. This document reports on a study of school districts in three communities--St. Louis (Missouri), Cincinnati (Ohio), and Nashville (Tennessee)--that have made wide use of magnets in meeting their obligations to desegregate schools. The focus was on whether these magnet schools served the educational needs and interests of poor and minority children. In St. Louis the study also examined another type of public school choice, a voluntary interdistrict city-to-suburb transfer program established by a consent decree. Findings of the extensive studies lead to the conclusion that the magnet schools and the St. Louis interdistrict program do meet the test of serving poor children when compared to what the children would have experienced otherwise. Without these schools, the children would not have received comparable educational opportunities. The Commission recommends the continued and expanded use of magnet schools and voluntary interdistrict transfer programs with appropriate safeguards. Part One of this document consists of the report and recommendations of the Commission. Part Two contains the technical summary reports prepared on the three school districts. Five appendixes provide supplemental information to the technical reports for the Cincinnati and St. Louis studies and two more appendixes supplement the technical report for the Nashville study. (Contains 4 tables, 12 graphs in appendixes, 32 tables in appendixes, and 36 references.) (SLD)