Oh, that’s really informative! So if someone lived in the rural USA and got a really high score for the aptitude test, they could go to a magnet school, but only if their parents knew about it and applied and could afford transport?
Comment on Does the USA have gifted schools or was Spider-Man Homecoming lying?
dosboy0xff@infosec.pub 14 hours ago
One of my kids went to a magnet school for performing arts. They’re public schools, and they don’t cost extra, but you do have to apply for them if you don’t live in the immediate area and there’s an element of competition to get in.
The idea behind magnet schools is that you can improve the overall academic performance of a school if you diversity in economic and academic backgrounds of the students. Schools in the US are tied to a geographic area, which in turn is generally correlated with income - poor areas tend to have bad schools with low funding; richer areas have much better schools with better funding. With magnet schools the state/school district/whatever will take a struggling school, pump a bunch of extra funding into it, usually give it some sort of academic theme (e.g. visual arts, performing arts, STEM, etc.) with the goal of attracting gifted students from outside to come to the school.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 13 hours ago
dhork@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Schools in the US are generally funded and organized at the State level. US schools in different states (or even schools between US cities and rural areas in the same state) are a totally different experience.
A large district like NYC (one of the largest in the country, if not the largest) is big enough to offer several of these magnet High Schools, which you need to take a test to get into, and are highly competitive. Small rural and suburban districts don’t have the same resources, but often have advanced science and math tracks that can get those kids ready for STEM majors in college. Many US districts also have partnerships with the local Community College, where high school kids who take college-level classes while in high school can get College credit for them. A smart kid who takes advantage of these can knock a semester’s worth of credits out while in High School.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
If you want to talk about the underlying idea behind almost every major educational reform in the United States in the last forty years, it is this: to destroy public education. If it is not the formal intent, it becomes the practical effect as the only way to get political support is to get support from Republicans, and Republicans hate public education on every level it is possible to hate something and will support it only on the conditions that it deteriorates public education.
Magnet schools able to admit, deny admission, and expel with greater ease, siphon off the best and the brightest from normal public schools, pulling down grades at those schools, which makes them easier to defund, or close, and leaves more students who are more expensive to educate.
Also see: “school choice” as a conservative talking point. Also see: divide and conquer.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 10 hours ago
The magnet schools in New York City were founded well before school rankings were published, with most of them founded before 1950.
I’ve met several students from these schools and they’ve mostly spoke about these high schools with praise. They got to go to a school with intellectual peers instead of being an outlier.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
Yes.