The pervasive
consensus is that a private school education is better for our children than
one provided by a public school. But is this really true? Private school do a
much better job of marketing themselves because their success relies on them
filling their classrooms.
Better Academic Outcomes
Private schools do
tend to produce higher scoring students. For example, in Canada, about a third
of the top ranking schools are private. The rankings are based on the student’s
performance on standardized tests.
One important
consideration is that private school children tend to come from families that
occupy a higher socio-economic bracket. This means that they are more likely to
have parents who are at home and are more likely to be university-educated,
they have access to better materials and resources and they have access to
better food and medical care.
In 2014, a study by
two researchers from the University of Illinois found that, when you control
for these socio-economic advantages, private school education performs on par
or worse than public schools. There was little evidence to support the notion
that these private school with better resources and better teachers, had a
positive influence on the academic standards of the students.
A recent study
followed 7,142 Grade 10 students from both public and private schools. While
they found that the private school students excelled at academics (about 9%
better than their public school counterparts) and went on to enjoy more success
after graduation, they could not attribute this success to the school itself.
From the report: "Two factors consistently account for these differences;
students who attended private high schools were more likely to have
socio-economic characteristics positively associated with academic success and
to have school peers with university-educated parents."
Another study by the
Center on Education Policy challenges traditional perceptions about private
schools. President of the Center Jack Jennings sums it up: "Contrary to
popular belief, we can find no evidence that private schools actually increase
student performance, instead, it appears that private schools simply have
higher percentages of students who would perform well in any environment based
on their previous performance and background."
Some advantages
The study found that
private school students were positively influenced by the academic caliber of
their classmates. Private schools often have stringent entry requirements and
being surrounded by successful academics is certainly a positive influence on
students.
The study also showed
that the students went on to enjoy greater success in the labor market in part
because of the associations and connections that they had established with
other families who were well situated on the social-economic level.
Level Playing Field
Contrary to popular
belief, the study found that private schools in general didn’t differ that much
in terms of the resources and quality of teachers and were only slightly better
than private schools. As funding for schools gets cut (especially in the US)
this gap may grow.
So if a private school
is only slightly better than a public school at educating your child, where
would you get the most for your educational buck? “I would get a private
tutor,” says Jon-Anthony Lui from Tutor
Doctor. “With a
one-on-one tutor, your child gets the individual attention they need and the
tutor can not only find the missing building blocks in their knowledge, they
can also teach them the executive skills they need to be successful in
academics and in life. You’ll spend less on a tutor and you’ll see the results
instantly.”
