America's urban schools have come under pressure for their racial segregation and for a rigid traditionalism which alienates many students. Magnet schools have been established in several cities to attack both of these problems with attractive innovative educational programs which are intended to draw students of different races as volunteers.…

Following a brief discussion of the policies which have led to the focus on magnet schools as tools for both school improvement and desegregation, this paper brings together existing research in order to answer the following question: what is the best design for magnet schools to be the most effective for desegregation? Magnet schools have only a…

In October 1983, the School District of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission signed a memorandum of understanding that resulted in a Modified Desegregation Plan. The plan itself consisted of three complementary initiatives: (1) an educational improvement component promising systemwide educational reforms, specialized…

Express routing, under consideration by San Diego (California) Public Schools, is a form of bus transportation that picks up and drops off students at centralized points instead of driving through residential neighborhoods. This report examines other, similar districts' experiences in applying express routing in integration and other school…

Magnet school programs were established in three Atlanta, Georgia, public high schools and were designed to provide specialized curriculum that was unique within the school system either in terms of the content area taught or the instructional strategies used. The programs were the Grady School of Communication, the North Fulton Center for…

A majority of the school districts that desegregate use magnet schools as part of their effort. Magnet schools offer enriched academic or vocational programs to attract committed students whose neighborhood schools do not offer the coursework and activities they seek. This paper is concerned with science magnet schools. This study was designed to…

This policy guide draft pulls together information on the types of public school choice plans being implemented or debated across the nation. The guide describes six different kinds of plans that involve a choice among public schools: interdistrict, postsecondary options, second-chance, controlled-choice, teacher-initiated schools, and magnet…

This report offers a framework and conceptual base for a statewide discussion of public school choice. A review of choice activities in other states and an analysis of typical components in a choice program are provided. Organized into four main chapters, the report starts with an explanation of the concept of choice followed by a review of the…

The Augustus F. Hawkins-Robert T. Stafford Elementary and Secondary School Improvement Amendment of 1988, PL 100-297 of the 100th Congress, was approved April 28, 1988. The bill extends almost every federal elementary and secondary education program through 1993. The Chapter 1 Program, which is the largest federal aid to education program,…

Although 70 percent of the 1,600 schools responding to a survey by the Sid Richardson Foundation in Forth Worth, Texas provides some sort of program for the gifted, this was often found to be only "enrichment." An example of a school system that has gone beyond enrichment is that of Frederick County, Maryland. The system provides an…

The results of computer simulations of each of 17 variations on 4 prototypical desegregation plans applied to the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) are reported in this document. The prototypes, each representing a category of proposals offered at one point or another during the litigation of the desegregation issues are: (1) an…

This document reports the results of computer simulations of each of 19 variations on 4 prototypical desegregation plans applied to the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Each prototype represents one of the following categories of proposals offered during the litigation of the desegregation issue in the California courts: (1) an…

A questionnaire survey of parents and students in the Houston (Texas) Independent School District (HISD) sought their assessment of the magnet schools program started by HISD in 1975 to comply with a court desegregation order. Respondents included 1,310 parents (of 20,000 surveyed) and 8,675 elementary and secondary students (of 12,000 surveyed).…

Presented is a discussion of the events of the 20-year lapse between the invention of the pile in 1800 by Volta, and Hans Christian Oersted's famous definitive paper "Effects of a Current of Electricity on the Magnetic Needle." Students are thus enabled to appreciate the climate of the time and the manner and significance of Oersted's…

This paper focuses on the search for electromagnetic induction from 1820 to 1831 and the efforts by Augustin Fresnel's colleague, Andre Marie Ampere, in electric and magnetic induction. Faraday's work is discussed with excerpts from his diary on electromagnetism. A variety of different experiments by researchers including Francoise Jean Arago,…