Support for magnet schools waning despite their success

This from the LA Times:

The programs have frequently achieved their goal

of voluntary integration and high-quality academic programs.

But funding is stagnating, partly due to nation's budget woes.

Support for magnet schools has foundered nationwide even though they continue to shine compared to other types of public schools, including charters, researchers concluded in a report released today.Magnet programs, created to promote voluntary integration, have suffered court setbacks, stagnant federal funding and local budget cuts.But they have frequently delivered on their purpose, while also producing many high-quality and sought-after academic programs, concluded researchers with the UCLA-based Civil Rights Project.

In fact, they said, magnets embody a key advantage over charter schools, namely, integration: Magnets promote it, while charter schools can exacerbate racial isolation, said study director Erica Frankenberg.

A black student in a magnet school, for example, is far more likely to have classes with a white student than a black student in a charter school, she said. Specifically, about 70% of black charter school students had virtually no white classmates. Magnet schools do substantially better: 47.3% of black students attend magnets that are similarly segregated...