School Climate

On the Public-Private School Achievement Debate

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Paul E. Peterson and Elena Llaudet:

According to the NCES study, the performance of students attending private schools was superior to that of students attending public schools. But after statistical adjustments were made for student characteristics, the private school advantage among 4th-graders was reported to give way to a 4.5 point public school advantage in math and school-sector parity in reading. After the same adjustments were made for 8th-graders, private schools retained a 7 point advantage in reading but achieved only parity in math.
However, NCES’s measures of student characteristics are flawed by inconsistent classification across the public and private sectors and by the inclusion of factors open to school influence.
Utilizing the same data as the original study but substituting better measures of student characteristics, improved Alternative Models identify a private school advantage in 11 out of 12 public-private comparisons. In 8th-grade math, the private school advantage varies between 3 and 7 test points; in reading, it varies between 9 and 13 points. Among 4th graders, in math, parity is observed in one model, but private schools outperform public schools by 2 to 4 points in the other two models; in 4th-grade reading, private schools have an advantage that ranges from 6 to 10 points. Except when parity is observed, all differences are statistically significant.

2 thoughts on “On the Public-Private School Achievement Debate”

  1. Here you go again. I read the entire above report and it stated:
    “The results from the Alternative Models should not be understood as showing that private schools outperform public schools. Without information on prior student achievement, one cannot answer questions about schools’ efficacy in raising student test scores.”
    An additional quote from the article:”Our results are not offered as evidence that private schools outperform public schools but as a demonstration of the dependence of the NCES results on questionable analytic decisions”.
    Those decisions were the following: NCE used Title I and Free Lunch while the authors used parents education and location of school. Frankly I prefer the NCE criteria for obvious reasons. Of course most private schools do not qualify for Title I and, it is a well documented fact that parents education would also vary in private schools.
    Therefore, NCE’S results which give a round of applause to public schools over private schools is correct.
    The full report can be found at either:
    http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006461.asp
    or the NY Times archives for July 15, 2006 report # 200607115

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