History of Magnet Schools in the United States
Magnet schools grew out of the effort to desegregate American public schools. Instead of assigning students across neighborhood lines, districts created schools with programs attractive enough that families of different backgrounds would choose them. This guide traces how that idea became a federal program and where magnet schools stand today.
Origins: desegregation by choice
In Brown v. Board of Education (1954) the Supreme Court held that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional. Desegregating them proved slow and contested, and in many cities mandatory reassignment and busing met strong resistance. During the 1960s and early 1970s some districts began trying a voluntary alternative: specialized schools that would draw students from across the district. Tacoma, Washington's McCarver Elementary (1968) is often cited as one of the earliest of these schools; accounts of which school came first, and of where the name "magnet" originated, vary.
Houston opened its High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in the fall of 1971, an early example of a specialized school drawing students district-wide (). Houston later extended magnet programs across the district as part of its desegregation plan, and many other cities adopted magnet schools as part of their own plans.
Federal support begins: the Emergency School Aid Act
Congress first funded desegregation efforts of this kind through the Emergency School Aid Act of 1972, which helped districts carrying out desegregation plans. The Education Amendments of 1976 added support specifically for magnet schools. In 1981 Congress folded the Emergency School Aid Act into a general education block grant, and dedicated federal magnet funding lapsed until 1984.
The Magnet Schools Assistance Program
Congress created the Magnet Schools Assistance Program in 1984, in Title VII of the Education for Economic Security Act (Public Law 98-377), and the first grants were made in 1985. The program was later moved into the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and revised in 1994; since the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 it sits in Title IV, Part D of that law. It makes competitive grants to school districts that operate under a court-ordered desegregation plan or have voluntarily adopted a federally approved desegregation plan, to establish and run magnet schools (). The statute still defines a magnet school by its purpose: a public school "that offers a special curriculum capable of attracting substantial numbers of students of different racial backgrounds" ().
From desegregation tool to school choice
Over time the themes multiplied, from science and the arts to international studies, language immersion, career academies and the International Baccalaureate, and magnet schools became one of several public school choice options alongside open enrollment and charter schools. How students are admitted has been debated throughout: lotteries are designed to give every applicant the same chance, while screened admission by grades, tests or auditions can make a school less representative of its district. Each district sets its own rules (see choosing and applying to a magnet school).
Magnet schools today
For the 2021-22 school year, the most recent federal magnet data, schools reported to the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection that 2,281 were whole-school magnets and 1,746 offered a magnet program within the school. The National Center for Education Statistics counts about 3,000 magnet schools among 99,200 public schools that year, without California (), and the Congressional Research Service reports 3,015 magnet schools serving 2.2 million students (). Our magnet schools directory lists the schools in the Civil Rights Data Collection that are open today, by state and county.
Sources
- 20 U.S.C. 7231a, definition of magnet school:
- Education for Economic Security Act, Pub. L. 98-377, title VII (Aug. 11, 1984): see the notes to 20 U.S.C. 4051 (repealed 1988) at
- Congressional Research Service, Overview of Public and Private School Choice Options, IF10713 (May 12, 2025):
- NCES, Characteristics of Elementary and Secondary Schools (May 2024):
- U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2021-22 public-use file:
- Houston ISD, Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, school history: