What makes good magnet programs attractive?

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What makes good magnet programs attractive?<br>Gather advanced students, then teach them where they're at

Justin Rosentover<br>Jul 31, 2026

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Justin Rosentover is a Junior Fellow at the Center for Educational Progress and recent graduate of the Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland. This fall, he will be attending Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Charting the Course is a series from Education Progress featuring pro-excellence education commentary, news, and policy analysis.

Last month, in response to Katie Arnold-Ratliff’s viral criticism1 of gifted and talented programs in New York City public schools, Matthew Yglesias argued that the real problem with these programs is that parents barely care about their “actual educational efficacy.” Contra Arnold-Ratliff, who doubts there are “gifted” children to identify at all, Yglesias writes that,<br>“Precisely because you really can identify which kids are the most promising ones in a pretty reliable way, the mere fact that the graduates of a gifted program do well in life does not convey any information at all about whether the program is actually any good. [...] Parents are just massively, massively under-rating the power of selection effects and wasting a lot of time, money, and political capital.”

One study he points to finds that attending NYC’s specialized high schools “has little impact on [SAT] scores, college enrollment, or college graduation.” Some magnet schools and gifted programs do earn this finding: they crow about improving test scores and college prospects while contributing little more than the ability to gather smart kids together in one place.<br>But an out and out dismissal of the value of selective programs would be misguided; SAT scores and college admissions are not where to look for their value. Yglesias himself doesn’t dismiss them; instead he implores selective schools and the parents choosing between them to embrace a basic tenet for improving “the actual quality of education,” one that everyone outside of education already knows: “teach the material to the kids who are ready to learn it when they’re ready, regardless of their age.”<br>This principle — teach students where they’re at — needs more defenders and better execution. When gifted education programs deliver on this mission, they don’t gather advanced students to coast on selection effects, but to make advanced instruction practical. One of the most concrete benefits they offer is giving advanced students the chance to take advanced classes that are only available when enough of them are pooled in one place.<br>Join the Center for Educational Progress and receive all our content — and thanks to all our amazing paid subscribers for their support.

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A model program

The magnet program at Montgomery Blair High School in Maryland, located just outside of D.C., shows what delivering this looks like in practice.2 Though the Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Magnet Program only launched in 1985, already in 1993 the New York Times would write in amazement that Blair produced three Westinghouse Science Talent Search Finalists, more than Stuyvesant or Bronx Science. The local superintendent, Paul Vance, remarked at the time that “I have never seen a high school’s image turn around so quickly.”

Since then, Blair’s magnet program has maintained its position as a premier science and technology program. Students and parents who fixate on test scores still have plenty to celebrate. In 2024, the average SAT score of Blair magnet students was 1529, higher than the better known Bronx Science, Thomas Jefferson, and Boston Latin.<br>Yet you won’t find Blair alongside the high-profile magnets in the best public high school rankings of U.S. News and World Report or Niche. One reason is that these rankings grade whole student bodies, whereas the magnet program is only a fraction of Blair, enrolling a little over 400 students in a school of 3,200. The more important reason is that at Blair, chasing prestige is besides the point.3<br>It is made clear to Blair students from the minute they walk in the door that better scores and better college admissions are not the magnet’s goal. This is expressly opposed to what many parents want from the school because the school realizes where it is actually capable of adding value.<br>The number of American high schools that offer a course in complex analysis can be counted on your fingers and yet between a quarter and a third of Blair students take it. It is only because Blair has brought together a group of students who have managed to complete multivariable calculus before their final year of high school can this be done, and therein lies Blair’s great advantage. The desired material benefit of a specialized magnet program should not be that it boosts SAT scores;...