Magnet Schools Assistance Program

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) has issued final rules regarding the selection criteria for the Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP). The final rules allow the MSAP to use selection criteria from the MSAP regulations, from the general selection criteria in the Education Department General Administrative Regulations, which are based on statutory provisions, or a combination of these. The former regulations only allowed applications to be evaluated on the basis of selection criteria in the MSAP regulations based on a point system. ED broadened the selection criteria because it felt constrained by just relying on the selection criteria from the MSAP regulations, instead of also being able to focus on "current program needs, new research findings related to magnet schools, or other appropriate information in order to facilitate the selection of applications that show the greatest promise of meeting the program’s statutory purposes." The final regulations were effective April 9, 2007.

72 Fed. Reg. 10,605 (Mar. 9, 2007)
[ED final regulation]

71 Fed. Reg. 48,866 (Aug. 22, 2006)
[ED proposed regulation]