Science 'Magnet' High School Programs Growing In Popularity, Variety

Increasing numbers of the students returning to high school this fall will take all or part of their classes in "magnet" schools or programs that emphasize math, science, and technology. Whether they are residential academies that attract top scholars or part-day programs for students seeking exposure to technical careers, these specialized public school offerings are designed to draw students with similar interests and talents. OPPORTUNITY: North Carolina magnet student Christiane Haeffele presented her work at a scientific symposium. "There are several pluses and minuses to magnets," says Daryl Chubin, a division director in the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Education and Human Resources. Magnet schools, which tend to get a bigger slice of the budgetary pie than do traditional high schools, often have small classes, high-tech labs, and teachers with superior scientific credentials. But while they are widely perceived to give students a leg up in college admissions, there are no concrete studies to attest to that notion. Nor do measures exist to gauge their impact on traditional high schools. Nevertheless, magnet schools appear to be growing in both popularity and variety, observes Richard Loftin, president of the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology (NCSSSMST). A nonprofit alliance of about 50 schools that vary widely in terms of emphasis, class size, and type and sources of support, NCSSSMST aims to shape a national policy on science education. Membership has nearly doubled in the past four years, according to Loftin, who also is director of external affairs at the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts in Natchitoches. Although some magnets were founded in the 1970s to promote desegregation, today's schools focus on using students' specific interests -- in science or the arts or business--to motivate them to excel. "The emphasis is the 'grabber'-- it's what makes students in these schools do better, because they're interested and they want to be there," maintains Donald Waldrip, executive director of Magnet Schools of America, a Houston-based consortium of magnet schools. Of approximately 4,000 magnet schools in the United States, Waldrip estimates that about 900 focus on science, math, and technology -- more than any other discipline. DIVERSITY: Central Virginia's Governor's School teacher Cheryl Lindeman, left, with students Lisa Branson and Michael Wortley, notes varied opportunities for graduates. New models for science high schools are always surfacing, according to Rick Bryant, coordinator for higher education initiatives at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) in Aurora and president-elect of NCSSSMST. However, he says, most fall into one of four categories: the "stand-alone magnet," residential magnets, schools within schools, and part-day programs. The first type enrolls students from several regional schools or school districts. Students compete by exam for places in these prestigious schools, which include New York's venerable Stuyvesant High School and Bronx High School of Science. Stuyvesant, which moved to a state-of-the-art building near Wall Street in 1992, has long been an archetype for science and technology education. This year, some 16,000 students vied for one of the school's 800 freshman slots by taking a citywide exam. The new building-particularly its well-appointed laboratories -- "really solidified Stuyvesant as a model for science and technology education," according to principal Jinx Cozzi-Perullo. MANY FORMS: Rick Bryant notes four different types of magnets. Several state-funded residential science schools, including IMSA and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, have joined these magnets over the past decade, Bryant notes. Like the stand-alone magnets, they tend to be competitive and offer strong college preparatory courses in the humanities as well as intensive science study. Schools within schools, such as the Science Academy of Austin, housed within Lyndon B. Johnson High School in Austin, Texas, allow students to concentrate on science, math, and technology studies without being completely removed from their community school settings. Similarly, part-day programs provide special science courses and laboratories, among other opportunities, for students who also attend several area high schools. At one such school, the Central Virginia Governor's School for Science and Technology in Lynchburg, students also undertake internships in a variety of local businesses. Beyond providing internship opportunities, businesses also furnish financial support -- often in the form of donated laboratory equipment -- to many science magnet schools. In the case of the Charter School of Wilmington in Delaware, set to open this fall, local industries took the lead in creating a program of rigorous instruction in science and math, in addition to other courses required for graduation. Charter schools are a new mold for magnet schools. They receive standard per capita funding from state and local government, but they're largely free of district-imposed management. By setting their own procedures and salaries, administrators at charter schools attempt to deliver more educational bang for the taxpayers' buck. Some charter schools receive corporate funding in addition to government support. Wilmington's program was developed by a consortium of six local businesses, including E.I. DuPont de Nemours Inc., Zeneca Inc., and the Medical Center of Delaware. The consortium will provide the school $600,000 over a three-year period, according to development director Greg Meece. He believes the Wilmington program may well be the first to apply the charter formula to a science high school. Another growing trend among science magnet schools is the adoption of specific themes, or narrow areas of study such as environmental studies, high technology, or medical science. "Theme high schools tend to focus on the world of work, but I hesitate to call them vocational schools, because the students go on to college and beyond at higher than average rates," Loftin says. Rather than channel secondary students into traditional "academic" or "vocational" tracks, some theme schools enable students to focus on subjects that spark their interest, regardless of their career ambitions. SCIENCE ATTRACTS: Donald Waldrip notes that many magnet schools are focusing on science. Theme high schools may strike some as inappropriately narrow, but many educators maintain that themes mainly serve to motivate students, rather than encourage specialization. "We're not trying to train scientists per se," stresses Linda Eads, principal of Miami's Maritime and Science Technology (MAST) Academy. "We hope that many will continue on in science, though not necessarily in marine or environmental studies [which the school emphasizes]. What we do is use the marine theme as a hook to get children to enjoy the learning process." That "hook" handily caught recent MAST Academy graduate Michael Wendschuh. Now a sophomore at Princeton University, Wendschuh says that he "came in not really caring about school," but was inspired by a class in marine geology taught by University of Miami geologist Harold Wanless. Wendschuh reports that he and four (of seven) students in Wanless's course now plan to major in geology. ALUMNUS: Nobelist Roald Hoffmann attended New York's venerable Stuyvesant High School in the 1950s. Unlike Wendschuh, most students who graduate from science magnet schools are not planning careers in scientific research. That's a big change, according to Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann; he attended Stuyvesant in the 1950s, a time when most of its students went on to study science in college and graduate school. "[Stuyvesant] had the greatest concentration of brainpower I've ever experienced -- even more than at Harvard graduate school." "We still have students interested in math and science, but it's not their overriding passion," says Stuyvesant's assistant principal, Albert Tarendash, who supervises chemistry and physics instruction. Instead, he continues, today's students "tend to see these subjects as necessary evils that they must endure in order to get into good universities." ADVANCED PROGRAMS: At the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, above, student Paul Dennis, left, investigates photosynthesis. Newer magnet schools, however, have expanded their goals beyond training future researchers, according to administrators. Rather, they foresee that most students will use their scientific training in other professional arenas. At the Central Virginia Governor's School, for example, a recent survey of the class of 1987 finds most of its members in medical school, the armed forces, or business careers, according to biology teacher Cheryl Lindeman. Such diversity, she says, "is exactly what I envisioned would happen." For researchers-in-training, there's no better preparation for scientific careers. Mohammad Siddiqui and Christiane Haeffele, students at the North Carolina School of Math and Science, not only conducted projects in the mentors' laboratories in local universities, but also recently presented their work at a scientific symposium. This annual meeting, organized by NCSSSMST, brings together students from around the country to present "work in progress" to invited scientists from local universities. "I was really impressed with the symposium," Haeffele recalls. She presented her study on the mutational effects of electromagnetic radiation on DNA, which she conducted in the laboratory of Holden Thorp, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Magnet School Resources National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology (NCSSSMST) Richard Loftin, president 52 institutional members, 50 affiliate members c/o Lousiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts 715 College Ave., Natchitoches, La. 71457 (318) 357-3255 - Fax: (318) 357-3271 - E-mail: loftin@nsula.edu http://www.inmind.com/schools/NCSSSMST Magnet Schools of America Donald Waldrip, executive director 500 institutional members 2111 Holly Hall, Suite 704, Houston, Texas 77054 (713) 796-9356 - Fax: (713) 796-1426 - E-mail: waldrip@magnet.edu http://www.magnet.edu "I've done a lot of science competitions, but this is the first time I've given a talk to a roomful of scientists," Haeffele points out. "I made a lot of contacts and got good suggestions for improving my protocol." Some university administrators believe that science magnets uniquely prepare students for academic careers. "We think that people who go to these schools receive about as good a math and science education as they can get," contends Bette Johnson, associate director of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). However, she adds, "attending a math or science high school isn't a guarantee that you'll do well here. Sometimes students from these schools have steeped themselves too much in their studies." While Johnson believes that magnet schools provide incoming students with good training for the rigors of MIT, the institute does not specifically track admissions of such students in its database. As several science-based magnet schools enter their second decade, the jury's still out as to how much they benefit students -- and if they do, whether those advantages come at a cost to others. "I have mixed feelings about magnet schools," says Shirley Malcom, who heads the American Association for the Advancement of Science's education and human resources program. While she strongly supports interest-based teaching, Malcom says she's concerned that magnets unfairly distribute scarce financial and educational resources. The National Science Foundation's Chubin shares Malcom's concerns, but adds, "I have not seen any comprehensive analysis on varieties of magnet schools in terms of school composition, or on how students perform relative to students from other high schools." Even more difficult to measure is the social impact of removing motivated, high-achieving students from traditional schools and concentrating them in magnets. "What is very seldom considered," Chubin explains, "is what happens in other schools in the district when kids who would otherwise serve as role models in terms of interest and enthusiasm attend magnet schools." In response to such concerns, several science-based magnet schools have initiated programs to share their educational wealth with other schools. The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM), for example, is making the most of that state's extensive "information highway" -- a wide-bandwidth network that permits simultaneous two-way audio, video, and data transmission -- to reach classrooms across the state. Last year, NCSSM courses in the science of the mind, advanced-placement American history, and pre-calculus reached nearly 2,000 students and 500 teachers in 30 North Carolina schools, according to school officials. In an attempt to bring state-of-the-art science education to schools in the state that don't have the resources to support such programs, NCSSM is currently developing seven "cyber-campuses," complete with television studios to produce their own educational programming. And in three laboratory sites located in rural areas of the state -- places where a low tax base and small schools make lab courses nearly impossible to teach-NCSSM faculty guide teacher-student teams, via the information highway, through year-long research projects. The teams then present their research to an online symposium. Such advanced programs served former NCSSM student Colin Law well. Ten years after graduation, he is now a postdoctoral researcher in space physics at Rice University. One of the few students in his class who has pursued a career in research, Law notes that his cohorts have been "extremely successful" -- mainly in law and medicine -- but he suspects most would have done well no matter where they went to high school. "The original hope was that students from this school would come back to North Carolina, bringing jobs and money with them, and that's actually starting to happen," observes Law, noting that several of his classmates are reestablishing their careers and businesses in their home state. Law says he's thinking of returning as well: to teach at his alma mater. "I'd like to give back a little of what they gave me," he says. Alison Mack is a freelance science writer based in Wilmington, Del.

Science 'Magnet' High School Programs Growing In Popularity, Variety

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