I keep hearing the words "gifted magnets" while referring to public schools. There is no such thing where I live (in Northern California) - we have "alternative program" schools which tend to be more academically focused and entry is based on lotteries rather than giftedness.
I keep thinking that living in an area with a "gifted magnet" school would be great. So, where in the US are these schools located? (of course, I know about the Davidson Institute). Does any parent on this forum send their kids to these schools?

There's really no connection between the terms "gifted" and "magnet". They are two completely different things.

There is a list of "exam schools" at http://www.usnews.com/education/blo...-fared-in-the-best-high-schools-rankings . Some schools not on that list that come to mind are Stuyvesant and the Bronx High School of Science. Some private schools such as Phillips Exeter are free for low-income students who get in. There is a strong correlation between IQ and academic achievement, and there are many more schools that screen for achievement than will explicitly say they are screening for IQ.

There is this one in Dallas - it is a public school:

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Resources_id_14224.aspx

If you go to this link and look for "Public" there is a bunch of stuff:
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/browse_by_topic_resources.aspx

Charlotte, North Carolina; they are magnet programs with the requirement of gifted certification to attend. After qualifying, the magnets still have lotteries as some schools are more popular than others, but the district seems willing expand to fit demand. There are six elementaries with partial gifted magnets and one highly gifted partial magnet. There are two gifted charter schools in the area also.

I'm in northern California, too. There's a gifted magnet called North Star Academy in Redwood City. Its website is thin on details. A review on greatschools.org damned it with faint praise by noting that "the kids have to test in, which weeds out low performers."

I knew someone whose son attended. Lots of homework, and (at the time, a few years ago), and attitude that "they're all the same until after third grade, anyway" when speaking of giftedness and gifted kids.

My school district has a clustered gifted program (it's not called a magnet) for highly gifted students. I think that Seattle and Lake Washington also have similar programs, but I don't know much about them.

Magnet schools can cater to particular population (low income, minority, etc..) and gifted students too. Some big cities have public school with magnet program for gifties.

Dallas- School for gifted and Talented and and a dozen more schools
Austin- LASA for High School and 2 middle schools
Houston- Carnigie Vanguard and a few others
http://www.houstonisd.org/Page/75080

And a few more here
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/national-rankings/magnet-school-rankings

Traditionally, the primary purpose of "magnet" schools has been to manipulate racial statistics.

Let's not single out magnet schools unfairly. In some places, neighborhood schools are not much different. A primary purpose of residential zoning laws, in my town and others with expensive housing, is to keep out low-income people, which certainly affects the "racial statistics".

Los Angeles USD has a gifted magnet program, including a Highly Gifted magnet.

http://echoices.lausd.net/

I'm not sure what your point is. You're really talking about something completely different.

Magnet schools were invented for the express purpose of meeting racial quotas. That's the reason they exist.

I use the term "magnet" but it's actually a school within a school...everyone in it is scoring in the top couple percentiles for ability/achievement. Basically what happens is that the district uses a school that has a lot of extra space and designates certain classrooms. I think it actually benefits the district in many ways.
1) they can use the gifted kids' scores to boost up the otherwise pathetic scores of the school on standardized tests. Approx. 20 percent of the school is highly gifted so it helps!
2) It saves on transportation costs because they don't bus the gifted kids from other parts of the district..parents have to drive. Otherwise most of these kids would be bused to their local schools
3) It solves the problem of the building having too much space and not enough kids otherwise.

It got started because parents petitioned the school board, probably citing these various advantages for the district.

Our school district (suburb of Chicago) has a highly gifted magnet program. It i a school within a school an is self contained. The school is not a low achieving school (if magnet is taken away it will still have high scores on state testing). The school is 3rd thru 6th. We have a jr high that these kids then attend, again a school within a school type program.

what Frannie describes is true for 3rd thru 6th grade. these kids have no classroom interaction with the rest of the school. In junior high though things slightly change. My daughter who's a 7th grader takes social studies and language arts with only 7th grade magnets and science with 7th and 8th grade magnets all her other academic classes geometry and Spanish are taken with the rest of the school.

Our "magnet" school is pretty much what Blackcat described. Ours started as few years ago as a response to our district losing students to the adjoining district's gifted program, which identifies kids at 1st grade and to local private schools.
Some of the privates have started a "PACE" program to allow for acceleration by making all core classes start at the same time over grade levels, in response to parents pulling them out to apply at our school.

Check this list. http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/schools.htm then search through for the word magnet. Maybe a dozen schools, in 4 states, but most of them in LA. The next question is whether selection is based on achievement test or IQ test. Would you move to LA just for a shot at it. This is not on the hoagies list but interesting http://www.fremont.k12.ca.us/Page/237

An interesting related question is whether there are gifted charter schools. A few states offer some of those. Charter laws vary from state to state. I am not sure "gifted charter" is possible in California. At least, I don't see one on the hoagies list. But in some states charter also means you don't have to live in that exact district. So that's magnet-like.

I think the Basis charter schools require 6 AP exams to graduate
http://basisschools.org/basis-model/graduation-options , but I don't know what scores on those exams are needed. They are implicitly filtering for some level of giftedness as well as conscientiousness.

There are definitely states which don't allow charter schools to restrict entry by testing.

I send my older child to an elementary gifted magnet and my younger child will also attend. I do not want to say where it is because there are not very many of these schools in the country. It is not LA.

I think you find magnet schools in many of the larger school districts in the country. LA Unified, NYC has magnets are two examples. There are magnet schools in S.F. but I don't know of any that are specifically for "gifted" students. There certainly are many private schools in the Bay Area and S.F. area that call themselves schools for gifted students. Magnet schools need to have a large population to attract students from so they tend to be more available in large cities.

Lowell (public) High School in San Francisco is "magnet", for high achievers, with restricted admission (by the previous grade point average?). High/stressful work load. The instruction quality is comparable to the other public schools in SF.

Well...I don't know about the "many" part, but there are a few here. Nueva uses IQ tests, but as far as I know, it's the only one. Harker recruits gifted kids, but I'm pretty sure their policies are achievement-based (not dissing Harker; my understanding is that they don't use IQ tests). I've heard good things about Harker's high school from a DYS parent. There's also a school in Santa Cruz, but they did an interview in a local magazine two or three years ago and the teachers they interviewed were saying that everyone evens out by third grade, including those amazing kids who learn to read when they were two (paraphrase: "reading is a milestone like walking; you don't hear about eight-year-old 'gifted walkers'").

Two of my kids go to a small private school in the Valley that's all about individual pacing. I asked them to place my daughter (10) in algebra 1, and they were wonderful about going ahead and doing it. They said they'd try it to see how it worked out, and it's been fine so far.

I think the takeaway is that just because it's a "gifted" magnet/charter/public/private school, doesn't mean that:
a) they understand the difference between intellectually gifted and high achieving
b) it will be right for all or any specific gifted child
c) differentiation is supported (the "all our kids are gifted argument"
d) the quality of instruction is any better than any other school

My advice to people looking for a better educational fit for their HG+ kids is to look outside the box and not to rely on a school's marketing material or label.

My former school district (Virginia Beach) has an elementary magnet school and a middle school exlusively for gifted. All children were eligible for gifted clustering in ES and MS in their 'home schools', but your child could apply to one of these schools if they tested gifted... and these schools were highly selective and the programs very rigorous compared to taking say an accelerated track in your assigned MS. The IB program was also offered in MS and HS and though giftedness was not a requirement, the program was highly selective academically. The school district also had a number of 'schools within schools' at the high school level in different disciplines like math, technology, language, etc.