From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Subject: Re: Magnet schools
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 21:09:51 GMT
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity von Uniland, College Park
Originator: clin@signal.eng.umd.edu


In article <1993Jan7.200126.13933@wam.umd.edu>, kckbxr@next16pg2.wam.umd.edu (Robin Hood) writes:
>
>I didn't read the article, but your letter and the examples taken from the  
>article indicate magnet schools used in a post-high school setting.   
>There, I agree.  In high schools, in my opinion, it's a different story.   
>In P.G. County, MD, there are a variety of magnet schools offerred.  I  
>think that this is discriminatory at this age-level.  I don't see the need  
>to concentrate on the magnet school programs on the hs-level when there  
>aren't enough funds to educate the general public properly.  Many high  
>schools are limited as far as necessities are concerned (terribly old  
>books, limited amounts of copy paper, resources, teachers, etc.) to the  
>general public.  I don't see how the Dept. of Education can justify  
>spending the general public's tax dollars on a few select individuals.  If  
>these people want advanced education, then they should look for alternate  
>means to funding it, but not the PUBLIC education budget! 

    I'm sorry I didn't mention it, but the article referred to high
schools.   Colleges and universities essentially do admit people based
on qualifications, so having an article like that would not be terribly
original (unless they suggested that a single test would be the sole
basis of admission, which is true in many countries).

    I'll tell you basically why I support the idea of magnet schools
despite elitism and possible discrimination.   Under the assumption that
not all students can be equally talented, and that only some small percentage
of such students can succeed (say 20%), and assuming that not all such
students live in one area served by one or two schools, but are distributed
in many places, and assuming that there isn't the kind of money and
administration to make all schools wonderful institutes of learning, then
magnet schools seem like a good idea.

    Why?   First, if we have a small number of students who show
evidence of being good in school, but some of these students are
located in schools where the local high school has to serve everyone,
then the likelihood is that such students will not have the kind
of education that can challenge them.   It seems a waste to force someone
to go to a school where they are not expected to accomplish much when
there is evidence that they can.

    Now, if we resort to private schools or parochial schools, then that
means a student has to have money in order to go, and this would be unfair
to the poorer students who can not afford private schooling.  In addition,
if students in poorer communities have poorer schooling, then there is
no alternative but to attend those high schools.   Magnet schools would
offer a means to go to a higher quality school.   

>
>Now, you may disagree with me and say well, what qualifies me to have an  
>opinion on the subject.  Well, I graduated from one of the high schools in  
>P.G. County, MD, in 1989 and am currently at the Univ. of Maryland.  I've  
>since visited my high school and have seen how pathetic it looks.  I guess  
>we can all thank his royal highness, Gov. of Baltimore, Willie Shaeffer  
>for the millions of tax dollars in which the kids will never be able to  
>have for education now, can't we?
>

    Here's the problem as I see it.   If the money were to be evenly distributed
across educational systems, the likelihood is that education still may
not improve.   Concentrate the money in a few schools, then students who
fare well can have a chance to do better.   Obviously such a solution is
not perfect.   Just putting money in the such systems in no guarantee of
quality, so people in these schools have to perform.   It also doesn't address
the problem of how to improve the education of everyone, in general.  However,
by having some magnet schools that are open by testing to all, then this
provides a way of having some quality education vs. no quality education.
Hopefully, a benefit of having such schools will be that some people want
better education and will demand that their local schools provide some
of that quality.  

    Another alternative is to run all schools in some sort of hierarchy
similar to the California education at the college level.  I believe
they run some two or three levels of state education.   University of
California is the top level, California State Univeristy is the next,
and there maybe some city colleges below that.

    Finally, I would say that there needs to be some minimum level of
money going to all schools which provides for books, etc.   However,
I'm not entirely convinced that money equals quality education either.

--
Charles Lin
clin@eng.umd.edu

Newsgroups: misc.education