The Elgin Area School District U-46 school board Monday night approved a two-year contract for $44,700 with the nonprofit association Magnet Schools of America to help transform its five high school academies into unique, certified magnet programs.

* Magnet schools pushed forward the desegregation effort under ShefF vs.

Kansas City's magnet remedy transformed the majority of the Kansas City, Missouri School District's schools throughout the 1980s and 1990s into magnet schools, an attempt to achieve racial integration and improve academic achievement.

Accelerated repair projects in the pipeline for next year include windows and a boiler at Columbus Park Preparatory Academy and Worcester East Middle School, and windows at Tatnuck Magnet and Worcester Arts Magnet schools. Worcester East Middle, which has more square feet of windows than Chandler Magnet and is also in line for a roof, will take more than a year, Mr.

ERIC Descriptors: School Desegregation; School Segregation; Racial Segregation; Magnet Schools; Counties; Educational History; Busing; Hispanic American Students; African American Students; White Students; Public Schools; Enrollment; Low Income Groups; Racial Composition; Urban Schools; State Legislation; Federal Legislation; Equal Education

* The Department has invited applications for new awards under the Magnet Schools Assistance Program, which supports the development and implementation of magnet schools that reduce, eliminate, or prevent minority group isolation and provides an opportunity for eligible entities to expand public school choice for students attending low-performing schools.

Case studies of magnet schools demonstrate that the achievement gap can be reduced if urban, suburban, and rural school districts are given adequate staff, resources, data, and time.

White students are disproportionately represented in Chicago's selective enrollment and magnet schools since a desegregation consent was lifted in the fall of 2009.

For the lottery analysis, the sample consists of 542 students who applied for admission in one of the district's oversubscribed magnet schools. The authors perform numerous robustness tests to ensure that their results are unbiased and consistent.

The court order turned every high school and middle school (as well as half the elementary schools) into "magnet schools," each with a distinctive theme--including not merely science, performing arts/and computer studies, but also classical Greek, Asian studies, agribusiness, and environmental studies.