To increase school diversity, geographic boundaries for St. Paul's neighborhood schools are not always contiguous; magnet schools include socioeconomic status (specifically, whether a student qualifies for reduced-cost or free lunch programs) among their selection criteria (Schellenberg and Porter, 2003). In 1974 almost all students in the St. Paul school district attended a school located in or near their neighborhood. Today, any public school student [in the US, `public schools' refers to schools receiving most of their funding from public government (tax-based) monies] in St. Paul is eligible to attend a `choice' school; an estimated 67% of students attended a school that is not their neighborhood school (School Choice.
