About those ‘failing public schools’…

July 15, 2006

Given the circumstances, I’d expect [tag]private schools[/tag] to produce higher test scores than [tag]public schools[/tag]. I’m an ardent advocate of public education, but private schools have built-in advantages: they can accept and exclude students for any reason at all; use entrance exams; expel students on a whim; cap class sizes, and even mandate parental involvement. When it comes to competition between public and private schools, it’s not exactly a level playing field.

And yet, public schools continue to do extremely well — especially as compared to conservative [tag]Christian[/tag] schools.

The [tag]Education Department[/tag] reported on Friday that children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools. The exception was in eighth-grade reading, where the private school counterparts fared better.

The report, which compared fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math scores in 2003 from nearly 7,000 public schools and more than 530 private schools, also found that conservative Christian schools lagged significantly behind public schools on eighth-grade math.

The study, carrying the imprimatur of the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the Education Department, was contracted to the Educational Testing Service and delivered to the department last year.

Granted, comparing two entirely different systems is inherently tricky, but these peer-reviewed findings, produced in a study commissioned by a Bush appointee, certainly have a political impact: [tag]voucher[/tag] advocates who recommend privatizing public education just lost another round. And before public school critics dismiss the comparison as apples and oranges, consider this hypothetical: if the results had shown private schools with a big test-score advantage, would they likely tout the numbers to advance their agenda?

Just as an aside, the American Federation of Teachers predicted two weeks ago that the report would be released on a Friday afternoon, because the Bush administration was discouraged about good news for public schools. It’s a shame the administration has become this predictable, isn’t it?

July 15, 2006 at 11:43 am

Oh boy, here we go! The obvious right-wing response to this will be to press for “refinement” of the testing programs, since “everyone” knows that private schools outperform public schools. If the testing results contradict that, then the testing itself must be faulty in some way.

The scientific method is for weenies, don’tcha know. Any time the results don’t support the initial hypothesis, there must be a problem in the methodology — the hypothesis can’t possibly be wrong!

Correct, DrGail,
There’s no way that those secular humanists in the communist, Godless public schools are better students.

Our Lord wouldn’t allow it

I suspect that the complaint will come from the fact that the study almost certainly controlled for factors such as economic background, etc. That is a necessary and acceptable scientific technique, but is often criticized.

The university where I taught for 32 years – as with other state universities in WA – had contracts with all the community colleges (used to be “junior colleges”) in the state: complete your two-program (usually Associate of Arts), then automatically transfer to the four+ year universities.

When I was a department chair one of our faculty complained that she had to deal with so many transfer students, that they just couldn’t complete with our “natives” (people who began at our 4-year institution).

Being a compulsive data-gatherer, I went through every grade given the previous year, all departments, and computed GPAs for transfers and natives. The transfers won by 0.01 grade-points (i.e., no significant difference).

About that same time I did a study (Who’s Who) of Nobel Prize winners. Someone in one of our science departments had complained about the lack of modern scientific equipment on campus. The Nobel winners overwhelmingly began their careers in small, public high schools and colleges.

I’ve been looking, but no longer remember where to find, Socrates’ opinion that students of his day were less gifted than those of previous generations. Seems every generation of teachers since has believed the current one doesn’t measure up to “those in my day”.

Nothing like data to shoot down pompous, prejudiced assholes.

I’m not sure on this one. I remember my own public school upbringing. I started out in Wyoming, which at the time had one of the best public school systems in the nation. We moved to Montana when I was 11 or 12, and the school systems there were at least two years behind what I was learning in Wyoming at the same grade level. Then I moved from Montana to Utah (no comments, please) during my junior year of high school. Utah was at least three years behind what I was learning in Montana.

It’s very individualized on the state level, and the students can’t be held accountable for what the local school district is willing to teach them and at which age level. I happened to excel (was even named a presidential scholar when that actually meant something), but I don’t think the current generation can say that. Education has been so underfunded that it’s a marvel public school kids are doing as well as they are.

I can only say that it is a tribute to our teachers that students are learning as much as they are.

CB, also don’t forget that another advantage of private schools is, if my memory serves, that they are not subject to such things as No Child Left Behind and mandated testing. The public school students and teachers are doing better than their private schhol counterparts in spite of having those anvils hung around their necks.

After glancing at the actual report, it appears that this is one of those studies that only a real statistician (as opposed to those of us who had a couple of courses) with experience in education can begin to interpret in a meaningful way — provided there is something meaningful here.

Setting aside the question of whether the NAEPs are a valid measure for identifying differences between publics and privates, let’s say your kid goes to a really lousy public school — should this study make you feel better? Maybe you’re paying out the wazoo for private schooling; should you switch to public and buy a boat? Obviously, no to both questions. Public and private schools each have advantages for certain students and disadvantages for others. What matters is providing each student with opportunities and motivation to succeed, and that can happen in any environment.

School vouchers were always a distraction because they don’t improve a poorly performing school, they just penalize it. I don’t see this study as providing ammunition against vouchers, but at least it doesn’t provide rationale for them!

I read a little of the PDF but it was enough to convince you the leads the private school kids had was because their parents found it important to do something diffrent.

Their is a passage in Freakanomics that explains it well.

Paraphrasing

If the child and parent care enough to try and get to a better school than that will influnce the scores not because of what the did but because of what they are.

This comment is directed to Michael (#5 above): I have had similar experiences with public schools within the same state. My family moved out of district when I was a junior in high school, and my new public school (only about 20 miles away from my old one) was at least one semester behind in each and every subject. Clearly, results will vary whether we’re talking about public or private schools.

I sent my daughter to a private school for the first three years, then public after that. My wife and I thought that she would get an excellent grounding that way, and have the skills to perform well in public school. She just graduated from High School and is going to an excellent state University as a nursing student. And of course I’m very proud.

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