The federal Magnet Schools Assistance Program1 (MSAP) offers multi-year grants to local educational agencies (LEAs) seeking to create, expand, or improve magnet programs that foster racial and socioeconomic integration. Magnet schools employ a variety of methods in order to enroll a diverse student body, such as targeted outreach, free and accessible transportation, encouraging choice across school districts, intentional school siting, and employing equitable lottery-based admissions policies.2 Many magnets also offer innovative programs around an attractive and relevant theme, like experiential learning, STEM, or fine arts.3 Congress appropriated $139 million for the MSAP program in FY 2024.
The U.S. Department of Education’s 2024 Notice Inviting Applications for the Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) includes a new Competitive Preference Priority 5 (CPP5) that relates to Promoting Equity in Student Access to Educational Resources and Opportunities.4
CPP5 encourages applicants to “examin[e]…sources of inequity and inadequacy and implement responses”5 that help address these inequities. Importantly, CPP5 acknowledges the relationship between community segregation and school segregation, and encourages applicants to propose projects designed to tackle this longstanding challenge.6 Applicants are encouraged to propose projects designed to “increas[e] student racial or socioeconomic diversity, through developing or implementing evidence-based policies or strategies,”7 specifically focused on: 1) interdistrict coordination;
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1 U.S. Dep’t of Educ., Magnet Schools Assistance Program, available at https://oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-discretionary-grants-support-services/school-choice-improvement-programs/magnet-school-assistance-program-msap (last accessed Mar. 29, 2024). See also Kfir Mordechay & Jennifer Ayscue, CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT/PROYECTO DERECHOS CIVILES, White Growth, Persistent Segregation: Could Gentrification Become Integration? (2017).
2 Jennifer Ayscue et al., CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT/PROYECTO DERECHOS CIVILES, Choices Worth Making: Creating, Sustaining, and Expanding Diverse Magnet Schools. A Manual for Local Stakeholders (2017); Genevieve Siegel-Hawley & Erica Frankenberg, CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT/PROYECTO DERECHOS CIVILES, Reviving Magnet Schools: Strengthening a Successful School Choice Option (2012).
3 Mordechay & Ayscue, 2017, supra note 1.
4 The 2024 funding notice differentiates between applications from new potential grantees (Absolute Priority 1) and applications from existing MSAP grantees (Absolute Priority 2). Applicants that apply under Absolute Priority 2 may choose to address one or more of Competitive Preference Priorities 1–6, whereas applicants that apply under Absolute Priority 1 are only asked to respond to Competitive Preference Priorities 1–4. “Applications for New Awards; Magnet Schools Assistance Program,” 89 Fed. Reg. 18614, 18617 (March 14, 2024).
5 Id.
6 Through CPP5, the Department encourages applicants to “review sources of inequity, and as part of their MSAP project, plan to develop or implement specific strategies to address the root causes of these inequities, which include collaboration with other LEAs, other governmental or community agencies, or across district leadership to effect policy change to address barriers to student’s access to equitable opportunities.” 89 Fed. Reg. at 18616. The Department specifically notes that it is “interested in projects from LEAs that propose to coordinate with other relevant government entities—such as housing and transportation authorities and through similar programs such as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Rental Assistance Demonstration program—given the impact that other public policy choices may have on the composition of a school’s student body.” Id. Last, the notice states that “[h]igh-quality responses to [CPP5] will identify how the specific strategies outlined are integrated components of their overall MSAP project.” Id.
7 89 Fed. Reg. at 18618.
