Magnet school

A magnet school is a public school which offers specialized courses or curricula. The term magnet school is mostly associated with the United States, although other countries have similar types of schools (such as UK specialist school). The use of the word magnet refers to magnet schools drawing students from across normal boundaries defined by authorities (usually school board) as school zones that feed into certain schools. The school which a student would attend if he were not attending the magnet school is often referred to as the home school (not to be confused with homeschooling, an entirely different concept) or the base school. In the United States, where education is decentralized, some magnet schools are established by school district and draw only from the district, while others (such as Governor's Schools in Virginia) are set up by state government and may draw from multiple districts. Magnet schools started popping up in the United States in the 1960s as a way of... full article at wikipedia