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Since coming into fruition, the number of magnet schools has risen dramatically. Over 232 school districts housed magnet school programs in the early 1990s. By the end of the decade, nearly 1,400 magnets schools were operating across the country. 

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/30189779.pdf

Access to free transportation, is a key component in facilitating racial diversity in magnet schools. According to a survey distributed at the Magnet Schools of America’s (MSA) 2008 annual meeting, in magnet schools with free transportation services, white students comprise almost 33% of the student body, which is higher than the 23% found in magnet schools without such services. Moreover, 11.9% of magnet schools that do not provide transportation are largely one-race, while only 6.4% of magnet schools with the provision of transportation are characterized as one-race schools. Such services are integral in ensuring that potential out-of-neighborhood students have access to these schools of choice. Ultimately, the presence of free transportation contributes to more integrated magnet environments. 

http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ucsd/reader.action?docID=10631869

Traditionally, magnet schools are found in neighborhoods with large minority populations. They advertise their unique educational curricula in order to attract white students who do not live in the surrounding area. In this way, the schools act as a “magnet” pulling out-of-neighborhood students that would otherwise go to a school in their traditional attendance zone. 

https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/71149/OSLJ_V69N5_1015.pdf

Across the country, magnet school application forms assume that its readers are proficient in reading and writing in English, understand the school’s curriculum, and recognize what kinds of resources are offered to students at that respective school. In diverse urban contexts especially, these assumptions privilege some families over others. Parents who seek out magnet schools tend to be white, educated, middle-class, and English-fluent. Thus, in order to break down the racial disparities these schools were intended to dismantle, magnet school programs have to be intentional in not only their outreach efforts, but also how they create the application text itself. 

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10665680490500370?needAccess=true