Public and Private Schools Compared

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS COMPARED

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Overview

How Markets Affect Quality:
Testing a Theory of Market Education
Against the International Evidence

by Andrew J. Coulson, May 2003

This paper uses evidence from developing countries around the world to test Coulson's conclusions from his book Market Education: The Unknown History. Do parental choice and direct financial responsibility, along with freedom, competition, and the profit motive for schools, really lead to superior educational conditions and outcomes? The answer to that question is fascinating.

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Implementing "Education for All":
Moving from Goals to Action

by Andrew J. Coulson, May 2003

The international community is committed to the goal of getting all children in less developed countries into school by the year 2015. The original target was to achieve that goal by the year 2000. That original target was missed, and the new target is likely to be missed in many countries. What specific policies can developing nations pursue that is likely to improve their chances of success?

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Integration Where it Counts:
Racial Integration in Public and Private School Lunchrooms

by Jay P. Greene and Nicole Mellow

One of the key criticisms of complete parental choice in a free educational marketplace is that it would allegedly increase racial segregation. James Coleman (see below) provided evidence in the late 1980s that this worry appears to be misguided, since integration at the level of individual schools was higher in the private than in the public sector.
Coleman's findings have a potential weakness, however. Namely, it would be possible to have a school with comparable numbers of black and white students without those students interacting with each other in any meaningful way. In order to address this issue, Jay Greene and Nicole Mellow recently studied voluntary integration in public and private school lunchrooms. Their results: Children in private schools were more likely to voluntarily associate with members of a different racial or ethnic group than were children in public schools.

Catholic Schools and the Common Good

By Anthony S. Bryk, Valerie E. Lee, and Peter B. Holland (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

"The authors examine a broad range of Catholic high schools to determine whether or not students are better educated in these schools than they are in public schools. They find that the Catholic schools do have an independent effect on achievement, especially in reducing disparities between disadvantaged and other students. The Catholic school of today, they show, is informed by a vision, similar to that of John Dewey, of the school as a community committed to democratic education and the common good of all students." --From the book jacket.
Further information on Catholic schools can be gleaned from the website of the National Catholic Education Association.

coleman1.jpg (12042 bytes) Equality and Achievement in Education

By James S. Coleman (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990).

This collection of articles by the late sociologist James Coleman debunks a number of myths regarding the differences between public and private schools. Public schools, for example, are actually less well integrated along racial and economic lines than private schools. The reason, Coleman reported, is that while the public school system as a whole enrolls a larger percentage of minority students than does the private sector, individual public schools are more likely to be virtually all-white or virtually all-black. Conversely, individual private schools tend to have a more even distribution of racial and economic groups, producing a more integrated environment.

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