Baltimore County's fast-growing magnet school program has developed without any strategic plan and needs revisions from its application process to follow-up courses, according to a consultant's study.
The study, being used by the school system as the basis for changes, calls for a more consistent screening process for applicants. More collaboration is needed between magnet schools and comprehensive schools, the report adds, and more magnet programs are needed to provide continuity in courses.
The study, scheduled to be discussed at next month's school board meeting, lists an eight-step plan to fine-tune the county's magnet programs and schools during the next five years.
Since 1993, Baltimore County has started 24 magnet schools and programs -- making the magnet system one of the most visible signs of educational change in the county. More than 10,000 county students participate in magnet schools and programs, and officials expect that number to continue to grow as more programs are offered.
Magnet programs have helped to reduce minority isolation in some communities, and to relieve overcrowding in many neighborhood schools, the study says.
But rapid growth also has sparked concerns among some parents and administrators that magnet programs foster an elitist educational system, while pulling students, teachers and money from neighborhood schools, it says.
School officials are considering the study's recommendations -- from new approaches in budgeting, to adding more programs, to improving continuity.
"What magnet schools are about is choice," said Anita Stockton, county magnet coordinator. "We would like to offer special programs where there is need."
The study includes data from focus groups, and surveys of students, parents, teachers and administrators. It cites a need for an environmental science high school in northeast Baltimore County and a performing and visual arts high school, as well as a language immersion middle and high school in the northwest.
Middle school students in a performing and visual arts program in the Liberty Road corridor now must travel to Towson for a high school that offers such courses.
To alleviate that problem, Dr. Stockton said the Office of Magnet Schools hopes to develop a performing and visual arts magnet program at Randallstown High School. She said there is a plan to offer special programs there in the next school year in preparation for a possible magnet program in the 1997-1998 school year.
Barry Williams, principal of Randallstown High, said the program will offer an alternative for area students who now must travel to the Carver Center in Towson to continue their performing and visual arts curriculum.
"We have several middle schools which would feed into Randallstown," Mr. Williams said. "To provide programs that the community is crying out for just makes sense."
Former county school Superintendent Stuart Berger was a strong proponent of the magnet program, which also seeks to racially balance schools, and helped to propel it forward with $2.2 million in federal desegregation funds in its first year.
Dr. Stockton said that although her office compiles data on the magnet schools yearly, she supports the study's suggestion that no systemwide evaluation be made until 1997.
"That is the earliest that it should be done," Dr. Stockton said. "When we start getting graduates of the programs, that's when we will be able to see the successes." The study was conducted by management consultant Jon R. Allen and Donald R. Waldrip, executive director of Magnet Schools of America.
