Public Schools as Good as Private Schools in Raising Math Scores

June 16, 2008

Students in public elementary schools learn as much or more math as do similar students into private schools. The finding comes from a new University of Illinois study of a nationwide sample of 10,000 students between kindergarten and fifth grade.

"These data provide strong, longitudinal evidence that public schools are at least as effective as private schools in boosting student achievement," education researchers Sarah and Christopher Lubienski and doctoral student Corinna Crane report. "It's worth noting how little variation school type really accounts for in students' growth in achievement."

The researchers used a statistical technique known as hierarchical linear modeling to account for demographic differences among students and among schools. They took into account such variables among students as their socioeconomic status; race and ethnicity; gender; disability; and languages spoken at home. For schools, they considered the average socioeconomic levels of a school's students; the racial and ethnic compositions; and their locations (urban or rural).

The researchers found that public school students began kindergarten with math scores roughly equal to those of peers in Catholic schools. By fifth grade, the students had made significantly greater mathematical gains, equal to almost an extra half year of schooling.

Public school students also "rivaled the performance of students in other (non-Catholic) private schools," the researchers wrote.

"We think this effectively ends the debate about whether private schools are better than publics," Christopher Lubienski says.

An article about the study, titled "What Do We Know about School Effectiveness? Academic Gains in Public and Private Schools," appeared in the May Phi Delta Kappan.

Source: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, May 23, 2008.