Opinion ID: 433833
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: magnet schools and integrative programs.

Text: 109
110 The district court and this Court previously authorized the creation of magnet schools and integrative programs. About 8,000 students (one-half of whom were blacks) participated in these schools and programs in the 1982-83 school year. Three hundred participants resided in the county. No one suggests that the magnet schools or integrative programs be discontinued. 111 The settlement agreement approved by the district court provides for the expansion or replication of existing magnet schools and programs and the development of new magnet schools and programs--in both the city and the county--with total enrollment to reach 20,000 students, twelve to fourteen thousand to be enrolled in city magnets and the balance in county magnets. The new schools would be phased in over the 1983-87 period. 112 To be eligible for transfer to the magnet schools, students in good standing must be in the racial majority in their home districts and must meet the qualifications for the magnets. Special eligibility requirements allow white students from the city to attend city magnets if the students now attend schools that are less than ten percent or over fifty percent white. 14 Black students in majority black districts are eligible to attend magnet schools and programs in other black majority districts if seats remain open after all of the host district's black students have been accommodated. 113 The State argues that insufficient attention has been devoted to developing a curriculum designed to attract county students. It also objects to being required to pay the full cost of building and operating the new magnets. 114 Before reviewing the State's specific arguments, we observe that the utility and propriety of magnets as a desegregation remedy is beyond dispute. In Adams v. United States, supra, 620 F.2d at 1296-1297, we evaluated the remedies we had previously found to be constitutionally permissible. We recommended [m]aintaining existing magnet and specialty schools, and establishing such additional schools as needed to expand opportunities for an integrated education. Id. at 1297. We reiterated our approval of magnet schools in Liddell III, supra, 667 F.2d at 658 (emphasis omitted), where, in considering an intradistrict remedy, we directed the city and suburban school districts to undertake a study of the feasibility of establishing magnet schools located in suburban districts with attendance open to students of both the suburbs and the city.    The location of these magnet schools should be determined by agreement between the St. Louis Board of Education and the suburban school districts involved. Finally, in Liddell V, supra, 677 F.2d at 642, we reaffirmed our conclusion that the district court could require that additional magnet schools be established at state expense within the city or in suburban school districts with the consent of the suburban districts where the schools would be located. As with interdistrict transfers, our previous determinations in this case concerning magnet schools are law of the case. 115 Had we not in our previous decisions explicitly examined and approved the use of magnet schools and programs, the weight of precedent would nevertheless oblige us now to approve their use. In Milliken II, supra, 433 U.S. at 272, 97 S.Ct. at 2753, the Supreme Court mentioned magnet schools as a supplement to the compensatory and remedial programs which it approved in that case. Dissenting in another case, Justice Powell observed that the Supreme Court in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Educ., supra, 402 U.S. at 26-27, 91 S.Ct. at 1281, implicitly encouraged the use of magnet schools: 116 Incentives can be employed to encourage [majority-minority] transfers, such as creation of magnet schools providing special educational benefits and state subsidization of those schools that expand their minority enrollments.    These and like plans, if adopted voluntarily by States, also could help counter the effects of racial imbalances between school districts that are beyond the reach of judicial correction. 117 Columbus Bd. of Educ. v. Penick, 443 U.S. 449, 488, 99 S.Ct. 2941, 2992, 61 L.Ed.2d 666 (1979). 118 This Court also approved magnets as a means of desegregating the Little Rock schools in Clark v. Bd. of Educ. of Little Rock, 705 F.2d 265, 269, 272 (8th Cir.1983). 119 Courts of Appeals in several other circuits have also approved desegregation plans which include magnets. Arthur v. Nyquist, 712 F.2d 809, 811-813 (2d Cir.1983); Berry v. School District of Benton Harbor, 698 F.2d 813, 819 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 236, 78 L.Ed.2d 227 (1983); United States v. Texas Education Agency, 679 F.2d 1104, 1110 (5th Cir.1982); Hart v. Community School Bd. of Educ., 512 F.2d 37, 54-55 (2d Cir.1975) (citing successful magnet programs in Boston, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; and Coney Island, New York); Stout v. Jefferson County Bd. of Educ., 483 F.2d 84, 85 (5th Cir.1973). District courts have also approved plans that include magnets. Tasby v. Wright, 520 F.Supp. 683, 741 (N.D.Tex.1981), aff'd in part, rev'd in part, on other grounds, 713 F.2d 90 (5th Cir.1983); Smiley v. Blevins, 514 F.Supp. 1248, 1260 (S.D.Tex.1981). A survey of the literature reveals that magnets are being used in at least eighteen cities. Rossell, Magnet Schools as a Desegregation Tool, 14 Urban Education 303, 320 (1979). 120 Despite the widespread approval of magnet schools by the federal courts, critics maintain that magnet schools cannot correct the deep-seated evils of school desegregation. See, e.g., Morgan v. Kerrigan, 530 F.2d 401, 410 & n. 10 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 935, 96 S.Ct. 2648, 49 L.Ed.2d 386 (1976); Bradley v. Milliken, 484 F.2d 215, 243 (6th Cir.), rev'd on other grounds, 418 U.S. 717, 94 S.Ct. 3112, 41 L.Ed.2d 1069 (1974); Kelley v. Guinn, 456 F.2d 100, 108-109 (9th Cir.1972), cert. denied, 413 U.S. 919, 93 S.Ct. 3048, 37 L.Ed.2d 1041 (1973). Yet the criticisms in these cases generally apply to desegregation plans in which magnets are the principal tool in a freedom of choice plan. They function differently in the settlement agreement approved here by the district court. Magnet schools are a single element of the panoply of remedies approved by this Court and the district court. Like the magnet schools in Stout v. Jefferson County Bd. of Educ., supra, 483 F.2d at 86, they are part of a complex and many-faceted plan. Magnets perform the salutary function of allowing non-white as well as the white students so enrolled a chance to widen their horizons through the interplay of ideas and the absorption of diverse sub-cultural attitudes. Hart v. Community School Bd. of Educ., supra, 512 F.2d at 54. 121 Magnet schools under this plan will be distinguished by the features that have made them successful in other cities: individualized teaching, a low pupil-teacher ratio, specialized programs tailored to students' interests, enriched resources and active recruitment. See Rosenbaum and Presser, Voluntary Racial Integration in a Magnet School, 86 U.Chi.School Rev. 156, 156 (1978); Levine and Eubanks, Attracting Nonminority Students to Magnet Schools in Minority Neighborhoods, 19 Integrateducation 52, 57 (1981). Because they are supplemented by the extensive program of interdistrict transfers and compensatory education, these magnets will not resegregate, nor will they create a dualistic system with elitist schools. 122 We do not believe that the district court erred in ordering the State to pay the full capital and operating cost of magnet schools. As we noted earlier, the State's status as a violator of the Constitution compels the district court to remedy the deprivations the State has caused. In Liddell V, supra, 677 F.2d at 642, we held that the State could be ordered to undertake as a part of its remedial responsibility the development of magnets. Now we reaffirm that conclusion. 123 While we approve magnet schools and affirm the district court's decision concerning their funding, we see merit in the State's argument that careful study and planning must precede replication or expansion of magnets. New magnet schools must be approved by the Magnet Review Committee and the district court. The planning process should focus on those schools and programs that present a reasonable probability of attracting suburban white students; only those schools which demonstrate such a probability should be approved. The new schools should be phased in over a period of four years as provided for by the settlement agreement. The total number of students enrolled in city magnet schools shall not exceed 14,000. 124 We impose an additional limitation on the development of suburban magnets. Although a panel of this Court approved the use of suburban magnet schools in Liddell III, supra, 667 F.2d at 658-659; and Liddell V, supra, 677 F.2d at 641-642, the Court en banc does not believe that the record sufficiently supports this development. The county districts may proceed on their own, of course, without state funding. Any black city students who transfer into county-funded magnet schools would count toward achieving the district's plan goal and would contribute to the district's final judgment. State fiscal incentives would include payments to districts sending transferees to county-funded magnets, but the State will not be required to pay the capital or operating costs of county magnet schools as such. 125
126 Part-time integrative programs are primarily intended to provide integrative learning experiences for students attending all-black schools. Adams v. United States, supra, 620 F.2d at 1296; Liddell IV, supra, 693 F.2d at 727; Liddell V, supra, 677 F.2d at 642. These programs have been, and should continue to be, an important element of the overall plan to integrate the city schools. In determining the need for continuing the existing programs, or developing new ones, the City Board and the Budget Review Committee must keep the above standard in mind. They must also recognize that the number of black students in nonintegrated schools will decline dramatically over the next four years. We thus approve the district court's decision insofar as it permits the continuance of part-time integrative programs and requires the State to pay full cost of the approved programs. 127 We do not, however, specifically approve the new or expanded programs or the dollar amounts for these programs listed in the proposed budget (items A.4.10, A.4.11, A.5.01, A.5.02, A.5.04, A.5.05, A.6.01, A.6.03, and A.6.04). We rather require the City Board to resubmit to the Budget Review Committee, discussed infra Section VI, a list of the new or expanded programs that they would propose to implement. The total cost of these programs should not exceed $1 million. Further, these programs must not duplicate any programs approved in the quality education section of this opinion. Any dispute that emerges between the City Board and the State concerning these programs should be submitted for resolution by the Budget Review Committee and the district court in light of this discussion. 128