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EDUCATION REPORT - August 8, 2002: Magnet Schools
By Jerilyn Watson
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Many American students attend public schools
called magnet schools. They are called magnet schools because they include
students from all areas of a city or community. Students can choose
to attend a magnet school instead of the school closest to their home
if they meet the requirements.
Magnet schools offer programs designed for students
with special abilities or needs. For example, a sixteen-year-old boy
has unusual abilities in science and technology. He attends a magnet
school that places special importance on these subjects. Another boy,
eleven years old, cannot hear. This child attends a magnet school for
the deaf.
There have been schools like these in the United
States for more than one-hundred years. However, the Performing and
Visual Arts School in Houston, Texas probably was the first to call
itself a magnet school in the early nineteen-seventies.
At that time, American courts were ordering
public schools to end racial separation. The law required public school
children to attend schools so that there would be a racial balance.
Then came a legal decision about school attendance in Detroit, Michigan.
It added a choice. The decision gave students a chance to attend a magnet
school.
Today, magnet schools operate throughout the
nation. Like traditional public schools, they receive government support.
Magnet programs are based on special subjects. They include communications,
international studies, the arts, and mathematics and science.
For example, one of America's best known magnet
schools is the Bronx High School of Science in New York City. It began
in nineteen-thirty-eight. Its first students were three-hundred young
men. Today, about three-thousand male and female students attend Bronx
Science, as it is called.
Thousands of students from all areas of New
York City take competitive examinations to attend the school. To be
chosen, students must show excellence in mathematics and reading and
writing skills. Students at Bronx Science must study all the sciences,
mathematics, English, world and American history and a foreign language.
Many students at Bronx Science later have become
successful scientists, doctors, lawyers and writers.
This VOA Special English Education Report was
written by Jerilyn Watson.
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