A couple of education profs out of University of Illinois maintain that math achievement of students in public schools, meaning schools run by school districts, is higher than the achievement of similar students in private schools. (Note: The article is in Education Week which is subscription only, so the link may not bring up the complete article.) The profs, Christopher and Sarah Lubienski, wrote a book on the subject, The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools.
The same study found that district and charter schools are about equal.
Is it true? As would be expected, pro-privatization scholars have disputed the findings. Here’s the definitive answer on which side is right: Who the hell knows? Every education study is suspect because children aren’t lab rats, every classroom is a universe unto itself, and different scholars can slice and dice the same data to come up with wildly different conclusions. So all “results” from educational studies should be taken with heaping helpings of salt.
That being said, every reasonable study I’ve seen has concluded there’s about a dime’s worth of difference between the achievement of similar students in district, charter and private schools, and that dime gets passed around to different types of schools depending on the grade level of the students, the subject matter and the nature of the study. This goes all the way back to the George W. Bush administration, where his Department of Education tried to prove private and charter schools were better than district schools and ended up with the conclusion that one scored higher in one area, another scored higher in another area, but the whole thing came out as a wash. Bush’s folks were so frustrated with the study, they ran it again a few years later and got the same results.
However, one difference comes out in study after study. The lowest performing schools are conservative Christian private schools. Even the Bush-era studies agree. I’ll leave it to you to reach your own conclusions about that.
The pro-privatization “education reform” movement perpetuates the myth that students do better in charter and private schools than they do in what they like to refer to as “failing government schools.” These folks who love to pre-test, test and post-test students within an inch of their lives tend to “prove” their claims anecdotally, because the data they so lovingly compile just doesn’t come up with results they like. Then they use their billionaire donors’ money to help them repeat their anecdotes, misstatements and lies over and over until people think, if I’ve heard it said that many times by that many people, it’s gotta be true. But as so often happens, the facts aren’t on their side.
This article appears in May 22-28, 2014.
Your assessment of the assessments is right on target. Parents who have the desire and means to make real choices where their children go to school cannot simply look at whether a school is a traditional public school, a charter school or a private school. The quality of each category of school is extremely variable. There are excellent schools in each category, decent ones, mediocre ones and also ones that every parent should avoid like the plague. The reality is that parents trying to make an informed choice will have much better access to the data they need to make an informed choice from traditional public schools. Private religious schools provide the least data. You might say that sending your child to a Christian school is more an act of faith than anything else
But the fact also remains that having charter schools does give parents a CHOICE. I’ve known plenty of parents (with real kids, not statistical kids) who have pulled their kids out of public school and put them into charters (and visa versa). The reason is always the same – it’s better for their particular child.
bslap says, “But the fact also remains that having charter schools does give parents a CHOICE.”
Yes, many parents have done this. Some of their children have wound up in great charter schools. Others have actually been enrolled in charters that do a mediocre or truly lousy job of educating students.
Apart from all of that, charter schools are public schools. Unlike private schools, they are accountable for the public money they are provided and for student performance.