Chapter 5: Helping Students Help Themselves?: The Paradox of High Expectations and Low Resources at an urban Magnet High School

Alternative schools, such as magnet schools, have been highlighted as providing potentially important educational opportunities for students from less privileged backgrounds. Black and Latina/o students are attending increasingly segregated schools that often have fewer resources and academic opportunities than schools attended by their White counterparts ((Orfield & Lee, 2007). As a result, magnet schools may offer Latina/o and Black students an alternative to their segregated home schools, providing a more diverse, well resourced environment with a distinct academic focus. Ideally these schools are able to provide all of their students with an academically rigorous curriculum and college information that equitably prepare them to attend college.