Magnet Schools

The deadline to apply for magnet schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District is Friday. The district receives up to 65,000 applications each year for an estimated 16,000 spots in magnet schools, which include some of the best-known campuses. Applications can be picked up at any district school, at any city library or on the 16th floor of district headquarters at 333 S. Beaudry Ave. in Los Angeles. Applications must be delivered to the district or be postmarked before 5 p.m. Friday.

Corinne A. Seeds University Elementary School at UCLA has a rich history of providing experimental teaching to students lucky enough to secure a spot at its wooded Westwood campus. Now, the quasi-private, quasi-public-laboratory school is embarking on a mission to make its research-based programs more widely available by opening satellite campuses in low-income communities.

Support for magnet schools has foundered nationwide even though they continue to shine compared with other types of public schools, including charters, researchers concluded in a report released today. Magnet programs, created to promote voluntary integration, have suffered court setbacks, stagnant federal funding and local budget cuts.

Magnet schools in Los Angeles won a significant court victory Friday when a state appellate panel rejected a lawsuit charging that they violated California's Proposition 209, which outlawed affirmative action in the state. In strong, clear language, the three-judge panel said an organization affiliated with Proposition 209 author Ward Connerly was wrong to claim that the Los Angeles Unified School District could no longer use the race of students as a factor in magnet school admissions.

Negligent Los Angeles parents take note: You have only until Friday to get a postmark on the magnet school application that your more responsible peers regard -- rightly or wrongly -- as their last desperate hope for getting their children a good education at taxpayer expense. Don't panic, though.

SUPREME COURT decisions on two school desegregation cases are expected before the court adjourns. The rulings in both cases -- in which white parents in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle challenged districts' desegregation plans -- will determine whether school districts can continue to assign students to schools based on their race for purposes of integration.

Re "Don't forget L.A.'s race case," Opinion, June 26 I support school racial integration, affirmative action and magnet schools, but I am no longer convinced that in L.A. the third does much to achieve the first two. As noted in the article, the LAUSD has only 9% white students; because they are the new minority students, they are used to increased white percentages at magnets in black and Latino areas (e.g., an elevated 17% white and 12% Asian at the Bravo Medical Magnet).

In a case that could determine the future of the Los Angeles Unified School District's popular magnet schools, attorneys met in court Tuesday to argue whether race and ethnicity are valid criteria for determining whether students are selected for the prized spots.

Re "Case spotlights race as magnet school criterion," Sept. 26 Like Rodney Dangerfield, the Los Angeles Unified School District gets no respect. Its successes receive little attention, while its failures wind up on Page 1. Magnet schools are one of those successes. Who in their right mind would want to destroy a program that has been proved to deliver all the desired educational goals -- nurturing the child intellectually, physically and socially?

A Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that the Los Angeles Unified School District can continue to base admissions to its popular magnet school system on the race of the students, sharply rejecting a conservative legal group's argument that the system violates California law.