WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 — A large-scale government-financed
study has concluded that when it comes to math, students
in regular public schools do as well as or significantly
better than comparable students in private schools.
The study, by Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Theule
Lubienski, of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana,
compared fourth- and eighth-grade math scores of more
than 340,000 students in 13,000 regular public, charter
and private schools on the 2003 National Assessment
of Educational Progress. The 2003 test was given to
10 times more students than any previous test, giving
researchers a trove of new data.
Though private school students have long scored higher
on the national assessment, commonly referred to as
"the nation's report card," the new study
used advanced statistical techniques to adjust for the
effects of income, school and home circumstances. The
researchers said they compared math scores, not reading
ones, because math was considered a clearer measure
of a school's overall effectiveness.
The study found that while the raw scores of fourth
graders in Roman Catholic schools, for example, were
14.3 points higher than those in public schools, when
adjustments were made for student backgrounds, those
in Catholic schools scored 3.4 points lower than those
in public schools. A spokeswoman for the National Catholic
Education Association did not respond to requests for
comment.
The exam is scored on a 0-to-500-point scale, with
235 being the average score at fourth grade, and 278
being the average score at eighth grade. A 10-to-11-point
difference in test scores is roughly equivalent to one
grade level.
The study also found that charter schools, privately
operated and publicly financed, did significantly worse
than public schools in the fourth grade, once student
populations were taken into account. In the eighth grade,
it found, students in charters did slightly better than
those in public schools, though the sample size was
small and the difference was not statistically significant.
"Over all," it said, "demographic differences
between students in public and private schools more
than account for the relatively high raw scores of private
schools. Indeed, after controlling for these differences,
the presumably advantageous private school effect disappears,
and even reverses in most cases."
The findings are likely to bolster critics of policies
supporting charter schools and vouchers as the solution
for failing public schools. Under President Bush's signature
No Child Left Behind law, children in poorly performing
schools can switch schools if space is available, and
in Washington, D.C., they may receive federally financed
vouchers to attend private schools.
Howard Nelson, a lead researcher at the American Federation
of Teachers, said the new study was based on the most
current national data available. The federation, an
opponent of vouchers that has criticized the charter
movement, studied some of the same data in 2004 and
reported that charter schools lagged behind traditional
public ones.
"Right now, the studies seem to show that charter
schools do no better, and private schools do worse,"
Mr. Nelson said. "If private schools are going
to get funding, they need to be held accountable for
the results."
Supporters of vouchers and charter schools, however,
pointed to the study's limitations, saying it gave only
a snapshot of performance, not a sense of how students
progressed over time. Jeanne Allen, president of the
Center for Education Reform, said other state and local
studies showed results more favorable to charter schools.
Nelson Smith, president of the National Alliance for
Public Charter Schools, said that many students went
to charter schools after doing poorly in traditional
public schools, and took time to show improvement.
"Snapshots are always going to be affected by
that lag," Mr. Smith said.
Officials at the federal Education Department, which
has been a forceful proponent of vouchers and charter
schools, said they did not see this study as decisive.
"We've seen reports on both sides of this issue,"
said Holly Kuzmich, deputy assistant secretary for policy.
"It just adds one more to the list."
The study was financed with a grant from the Institute
of Education Sciences at the Education Department, but
was independent. The federal government is expected
to issue two more studies looking at the same data and
using similar techniques. Those studies are still undergoing
peer review, but are expected to be released in early
spring.
The current study found that self-described conservative
Christian schools, the fastest-growing sector of private
schools, fared poorest, with their students falling
as much as one year behind their counterparts in public
schools, once socioeconomic factors like income, ethnicity
and access to books and computers at home were considered.
Taylor Smith Jr., vice president for executive support
at the Association of Christian Schools, which represents
5,400 predominantly conservative Christian schools in
the United States, said that many of the group's members
did not participate in the national assessment, which
he thought could make it a skewed sample. Mr. Smith
said he did not know how many schools from other Christian
organizations participated.
The report found that among the private schools, Lutheran
schools did better than other private schools. Nevertheless,
at the fourth-grade level, a 10.7 point lead in math
scores evaporated into a 4.2 point lag behind public
schools. At the eighth-grade level, a 21 point lead,
roughly the equivalent of two grade levels, disappeared
after adjusting for differences in student backgrounds.
Correction: Feb. 1, 2006
An article on Saturday about a government study comparing
fourth- and eighth-grade math scores of students in
regular public, charter and private schools on the 2003
National Assessment of Educational Progress misspelled
the surname of the researchers. They are Christopher
Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski, not Lubianski. |
