Two sets of New Jersey school ratings are out and, to no one’s surprise, the top schools on the lists from U.S. News and World Report and our own Department of Education are selective magnet schools that only admit students who meet rigorous admissions requirements. For U.S. News, the top ten are all county magnets. Number One is High Technology High School in Monmouth where 300 students, all Asian and white and only two percent eligible for free/reduced lunch, compete annually for 75 slots. According to the DOE, the top 23 schools are all magnets; the highest-rated one is Woodbridge Academy in Middlesex, where 1,800 applicants compete for 500 slots. Almost all successful applicants are Asian and white and five percent qualify for free/reduced lunch.

Some would argue these magnets, which pick top contenders from among the whole county, are examples of public school choice: Applicants can ignore school district boundaries as long as they live in the county. Yet a new report from Available To All called “The Broken Promise of Brown v. Board of Ed” finds that sentiment malarkey. In fact, segregation countrywide has returned to 1968 levels , largely because students, say, in Newark, aren’t permitted to access nearby districts with far more opportunities. From the Executive Summary:

Believe it or not, many coveted magnet schools give enrollment preferences to wealthy families, trying to lure them away from their high-quality zoned schools. It is one of the great ironies of public education that magnet schools, created to reduce segregation and increase opportunities for low-income children of color, often now intentionally put those same children at a disadvantage.

The enablers are multiple: the federal government, which eschews any oversight; state courts that “defer to school district bureaucrats;” state legislatures that have failed to “ensure that all children have equal access to the public schools.” To increase educational equity, the report recommends that all states enact laws protecting families who want to enroll their children in schools outside their districts by reducing the importance of geography and ZIP codes.

The analysts grade each state on whether its policies restrict low-income families from having access to better schools. Here is what New Jersey does well:

• State law addresses cross-district open enrollment [through our limited Interdistrict Public School Choice Program]
• Schools/districts are required to hold a lottery for cross-district admission if demand exceeds available seats
• Cross-district open enrollment is tuition-free for families
• Schools are not allowed to categorically turn away students with disabilities based on program capacity constraints

Here is where New Jersey falls short:

• General state statutes do not exist governing admissions for all public schools
• State law delegates power to districts to determine which schools students will attend
• There is no appeals process for families unhappy with their traditional public school assignment
• State law does not address within-district open enrollment
• State law does not address magnet school admissions
• General state statutes does not exist governing admissions for all public schools
• Districts are not required to participate in cross-district open enrollment
• State does not require schools/districts to reserve capacity for nonresident students