Public school students generally outperform comparable
Children in public schools generally perform as well or better in reading and mathematics than their counterparts in private schools, when accounting for demographic differences, according a major study released over the summer.
"These notable findings regarding the remarkable performance of public schools are significant,
not just statistically, but also in terms of their policy implications," according to the report funded through the National Center for Education Statistics, which is part of the U.S. Department of Education.
"These data suggest significant reasons to
be suspicious of claims of general failure in the public schools, and raise substantial questions
regarding a basic premise of the current generation of school reforms based on mechanisms such
as choice and competition drawn from the private sector.
"Furthermore, assumptions that
academic quality will be driven by parental choice need to be re-examined in view of the fact
that conservative Christian schools, the fastest growing segment of the private school market,
were also the lowest performing," according to the report conducted by the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at the Columbia University Teachers College.
The report said it most important findings were that once demographic and location differences were
controlled:
- Public schools significantly out-scored Catholic schools.
- Of all private school types studied, Lutheran schools performed the best.
- The fastest growing segment of the private school sector, conservative Christian schools,
were also the lowest performing.
- Charter schools scored significantly lower than non-charter public schools in 4th
grade, but scored slightly higher in 8th grade.
The study compared 4th- and 8th-grade reading and math scores in 2003 from nearly 7,000 public schools and more than 530 private schools. Scores were from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests. It found that 4th graders attending public school did significantly better in math than comparable 4th graders in private schools. Additionally, it found that students in conservative Christian schools lagged significantly behind their counterparts in public schools on 8th-grade math.
"Without controlling for student background differences, private schools scored higher than non-charter
public schools, as would be expected," the report states. "However, this study examines these patterns
further, determining whether they are due simply to the fact that higher proportions of
disadvantaged students are enrolled in public schools, and the extent to which the gaps persist
after controlling for potential student- and school-level confounding variables, including
measures of socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, gender, disability, limited English proficiency,
and school location.
"Overall, the study demonstrates that demographic differences between
students in public and private schools more than account for the relatively high raw scores of
private schools. Indeed, after controlling for these differences, the presumably advantageous 'private school effect' disappears, and even reverses in most cases."
NEA President Reg Weaver said the study strongly refutes the idea that funneling students into private schools will fix the country's education problems.
"Students can learn in public schools, but those schools need resources to get the job done," Weaver said. "Lawmakers keep cutting education funding, and public schools don't have the luxury of charging tuition or rejecting students. If public schools can perform as well as private schools with much, much less, think what they could do with adequate resources."
Read the report (pdf file)
Posted August 18, 2006