Excellence in education might best be achieved if a wide variety of educational options were made available to satisfy the broad diversity of student needs, if parents were allowed free choice among schools, and if parents, teachers, and principals worked together to make each school responsive to its unique constituency. (PGD)

Reports on teacher, principal, parent, and student reactions to a desegregation plan implemented in Buffalo, New York, which permits teachers to choose the magnet schools in which they desire to teach and parents to select their children's schools. (GC)

Describes the production of a survey investigating what kinds of magnet schools parents and teachers want. Discusses: (1) the information sought; (2) pre-survey information-gathering and public discussion; (3) the creation of a citywide parent planning council; (4) constructing, conducting, and distributing parent and teacher surveys; and (5)…

Criticizes national education reports that call for a return to authoritarian schools in order to achieve excellence. Extolls the strengths and achievements for which magnet schools are responsible. (MD)

This document is the third in a series of handbooks designed to help educators who are considering controlled choice as a possible desegregation method. The document describes the educational philosophy, curriculum, teaching methods, school organization, and grading methods of traditionally organized schools. Four schools in the northeastern…

This fourth and final guide in a series of volumes addresses parents who desire assistance in selecting the appropriate school for their child. The guide provides narratives and "real life" descriptions of actual occurrences in schools that advertise themselves as emphasizing a particular style or philosophy of teaching or curricular…

Magnet schools were created as a result of the failure of mandatory desegregation plans, but the magnet schools concept has spawned the ideas of controlled parent choice of schools and the chartering of public education. Implementation of the Goals 2000 Act could jeopardize trends magnet schools have set in motion. (SLD)

Discusses history of immigrants and minorities in Fall River (MA), and the town's efforts to provide an equitable education for immigrant children and improve schools system-wide. The improvement plan incorporated the following elements: (1) controlled choice; (2) magnet schools; (3) controlled admissions and transfer policy; and (4) parent…

Recent reports on educational reform tend to encourage a return to enforced uniformity in American public schools. If public education is to compete successfully with private education, however, increasing numbers of magnet schools should be established to provide diversity and genuine choice among public schools. (JBM)

This publication describes schools of choice that are nontraditional in structure, including continuous-progress, open, and Montessori-type schools. It describes the philosophy, curriculum, teaching methods, school organizations, and grading methods of several different kinds of nontraditional schools: two continuous-progress schools, a Montessori…

In April 1984, more than 350 parents, teachers, principals and administrators from major urban school systems in Massachusetts met to define what an "excellent" desegregated urban public school system should be. This conference report, following excerpts from a keynote address by John E. Durkin, documents seven workshops which focused on…