Magnet Schools

TOWSON -- The Baltimore County school board has adopted a voluntary desegregation plan as a prerequisite to applying for a $10 million federal grant that would be used for four of next year's new magnet school programs.The resolution adopted at Tuesday night's board meeting concedes that the county has schools with minority enrollments exceeding 50 percent of the student body and that magnet schools have been effective in reducing such isolation voluntarily. The three-year grant would be used for programs at the Halstead Academy, now Hillendale Elementary; Loch Raven and Deer Park middle schools; and Southwest Academy at Johnnycake Middle School.

TRUTH IN packaging requires that I immediately make these disclosures:* I have a daughter who enthusiastically entered the visual arts program at Sudbrook Magnet Middle School this fall.* I teach at Old Court MiddleSchool, a neighborhood school that competes with Sudbrook for students.* Given the right circumstances, I would love to teach at a magnet school.As you can see, generally I favor magnet schools. However, even a magnet school proponent like me sees the down side to the concept. Chief among them are:* Magnet schools, which are designed to facilitate voluntary racial integration, generally attract the brightest students and the "best" teachers, or at least the ones who play by the rules, from the neighborhood schools.

Baltimore County school officials clarified a budget document Monday, saying that they will not remove any teachers from magnet schools next year, although they are doing an audit of those sites' resources. The administration's clarification of the proposal came after an outpouring of protests from parents and students at one of the county's two arts magnet schools, George Washington Carver School for the Arts and Technology in Towson. The proposed budget that Superintendent Joe A. Hairston presented to the board a few weeks ago calls for 37 magnet teachers to be "redirected" to curriculum offices to create specialists and supervisors.

A recent study by Harvard University researchers has some negative words for school desegregation efforts in Montgomery County -- words that should serve as a warning to Howard County. Researchers criticized Montgomery's attempts at racially balancing its schools, calling them "impotent" due to their voluntary nature. The study was particularly critical of the system's magnet schools, which it described as an inadequate desegregation tool. The result, researchers concluded, has been an affluent county that, despite its great potential, is marred by racial and ethnic isolation.

The Baltimore City schools need more principals like Evelyn T. Beasley, who retires this month after 38 years in the system, the last 17 as principal of Roland Park Elementary and Middle School.She lifted Roland Park to its potential by identifying allies and working with them, by expecting excellence from pupils and teachers and parents, by believing deeply in it herself and by smashing obstructions as if she was some manic bulldozer.If Superintendent Walter D. Amprey really wants to improve city schools, he ought to figure out what made Mrs. Beasley tick and package it. He could do worse than engage her as consultant and mentor to principals.

Baltimore County school officials are hoping that special offerings at magnet schools will improve racial balances and help win $4 million in federal grant money targeted for desegregation programs.The county school system is applying for up to $4 million in desegregation funding from the U.S. Department of Education to staff and equip four magnet high school programs in September and to plan four additional programs for the 1994-1995 school year."Because magnet schools have been effective in desegregation, they are eligible for this grant," says Anita Stockton, the school system's coordinator of magnet schools.

Eight of nine candidates seeking to fill two vacancies on the Baltimore County school board fielded questions on inclusion, magnet schools and standardized tests at a nominating convention in Towson last night.Most of the candidates, though with some reservation, supported inclusion -- the placement of special education students in regular classrooms -- but Shirley Giberson of Upper Falls, who has been an outspoken opponent of Superintendent Stuart Berger, was against it."It's a mess," she said.

He quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes on the challenges of the future. He wore a colorful Jerry Garcia tie, and joked that his theme song would be the Grateful Dead's "I Will Survive."But interim school Superintendent Anthony G. Marchione stressed yesterday that he would not change the direction of Baltimore County schools -- despite the tumultuous tenure of his predecessor, Stuart Berger.In his first address to about 700 school administrators, the lanky, 61-year-old educator did hint that several about-to-be-released reports on school programs and policies would provide a framework for the school year.

In the first federal appeals court ruling on racial preferences in public school admissions, a three-judge panel in Boston yesterday struck down the affirmative-action policy at Boston Latin School, the city's most prestigious public high school.The challenge to Boston Latin, brought by Henry Robert Wessman, the father of a white student who was not admitted, moves the charged debate over affirmative action in education from the college and professional school level down to the public school systems.