Are school vouchers, which make it easier for students to attend private schools an effective way to provide better educational opportunities for low-income urban children and youth? Policymakers who advocate this strategy often point to studies from the last few decades that have found higher academic achievement among private school students.
But according to a new study commissioned by the Center on Education Policy (CEP), the answer isn't so simple. In Are Private High Schools Better Academically Than Public High Schools?researcher Harold Wenglinsky of Columbia University analyzes data for 1,003 students who participated in the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988–2000 (NELS). His key finding: Attending private high schools does not improve low-income urban students' academic achievement, college attendance, future job satisfaction, or civic engagement.
The CEP study differs from previous research in a number of ways. First, it focuses specifically on low-income students (those in the lowest quartile nationally in terms of family income) attending urban schools. Second, it examines a variety of long-term outcomes. And third, it distinguishes among different types of public and private schools, including traditional public high schools, public magnet schools, other public "schools of choice," Catholic parochial schools, other religious schools, and secular independent schools.
- Are just as likely to go to college as their peers who attend private high schools.
- Have similar levels of job satisfaction at age 26 as their peers who attend private high schools.
- Are just as engaged in civic activities at age 26 as their peers who attend private high schools.
- Score as well in math, reading, science, and history (as measured by NELS assessments) as students who attend secular independent high schools, most types of religious private high schools, or public high schools of choice.
The study identifies two exceptions to this finding. Students attending the relatively few Catholic schools run by holy orders, such as Jesuit schools, score higher in some academic areas than those attending other types of private schools or public schools. The other exception is that students in independent private high schools have higher SAT scores than students who attend public schools. This finding, writes Wenglinsky, suggests that these schools either provide students with better test-taking skills or enroll students with higher average IQs.
The key findings of this report may surprise educators who are familiar with research comparing public and private schools. Indeed, admits Wenglinsky, "study after study has found a private school advantage" (p. 5). But in 2006, the debate about private school effects began to shift with a set of studies that examined data from the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress. These studies took student background—mainly socioeconomic status—into account and generally found that public school students performed as well as or better than private school students.
Wenglinsky's study extends this line of research by controlling for not only family income, but also other factors, such as students' achievement before high school, parental involvement, and parental expectations. He concludes that "once the full scope of the family is taken into account, cultural capital as well as economic capital, private school effects disappear" (p. 21). The implication is that school choice alone will not help low-income urban students succeed. Instead, policymakers need to focus on both improving schools and providing more support for low-income families. Wenglinsky writes,The good news is that concerned parents are not unique to any race, religion, geographic region, or social class, and there are as many of them in urban areas as suburban areas. But families need a combination of economic and social supports, as well as high-quality public education, to ensure that their children can take advantage of the social contract our society makes through the institution of public schools—to give every child a chance to rise higher than his or her parents. (p. 21)
