I’d like to see them put my kids into those statistics. They went to private school k-5, then to public (although a magnet and a charter) middle school, back to private for 9th grade, then to two very different public high schools. One went to private college, the other to public. So far the private college student is more successful and is likely to remain that way (engineer v. history major). Also, private school one is the minority. Most of the time, we were low income but educated parent.
@marvin100 I meant this question: “this study aims to evaluate the benefits of private school enrollment on a comprehensive set of student outcomes assessed in adolescence. We also consider the extent to which the the benefits of private school enrollment vary for children across the income distribution and children in urban and rural communities.”
To me, that is not a modest question, and it is not answerable though correlational studies alone, especially in light of the vast disparities in PUBLIC education based on income (via housing/zoning and tax practices in the United States).
To give a concrete example, the corner of my backyard is over the county/township line. Had my house (rather than just the yard) been in that township, my children could have gone to a public school that has twice to three times as much money per student than the public school they were assigned to in my township. Their teachers would have been paid at least 50% more, and there would be smaller classrooms and assigned laptops for each student. However,owning to house purchasing tendencies that serve as a proxy for school selection, houses on the other side of the county line are 25-50% more expensive. So, if we wanted to send our children to a top school, public or private, we either had to move to a smaller yet more expensive house, or send to private. Either way, a high income would be necessary to make that selection. The situation is similar across the region where I live, which also happens to be one of the regions examined in this particular study. Given that my work involves visiting and evaluating educational programs in this region, I feel that I have a pretty good idea of how those income disparities manifest.
To summarize: if you want a top school, you can either move to a micro-region where the housing prices are artificially inflated solely due to the schools assigned to that region, or you can send to private. Either way, high income allows one to purchase a quality education.
To me, this is a no-brainer. More income = no distraction from hunger, ability to see a doctor and take medication to reduce absences, babysitter/nanny/day care so older siblings aren’t in charge of younger, no need for students to get a job working 20+hours/week to support the family. I could add probably a dozen more things to this list as well.
One point the article makes is that private schools vary across a wide spectrum. Unfortunately, the study itself is behind a pay wall. When families aspire to private school, they are thinking of pricey prep schools. The study seems to have looked at a wider range of schools and suggests that some private schools are nothing like a prep school.
Not sure this means that for any particular kid, going to a specific very good private school does not have a direct benefit, compared to attending a failing local school. Just that in the aggregate, and across the range of private schools, there is no advantage to private school, when income is controlled for. Of course, parental income and education are correlated, but likely parental income and excellent private school are also correlated. I would be interested in seeing how they did the data analysis.
Well-off parents can buy houses in neighborhoods with excellent public schools. We lived in a town where surprisingly few wealthy parents sent their kids to private schools. Instead, they invested heavily in the public schools, funding enrichment activities, facilities, supplies, etc., things that are often out of reach for poorer school districts.
@lemonlulu , @ChoatieMom was joking. Her son went to Choate, and is now serving his country at West Point. Obviously, the private school wasn’t a waste!
Echoing what @psycholing was saying above, here’s an example based on where I live:
The highest income bracket can afford homes in the most affluent part of town with the best public schools. But the public schools which these kids attend have similar outcomes as the priciest private schools that kids with similar incomes attend.
For more middle-income residents, their public schools are good schools, but not as great as those in the higher income neighborhoods. Many middle-income residents send their kids to private schools. Yet the academic outcomes of the middle-class public schools are similar to the outcomes of the Tier 2 private schools.
In lower income neighborhoods, there are residents who send their kids to private schools, which is especially popular among Hispanic Catholics. The lower income private schools have similar outcomes as the public schools.
We don’t have enough people in our area who send their children away to boarding schools to accurately use data to analyze their situations. In summary, the most affluent kids who attend the top-tier public schools are getting a better education that the lowest-income kids who attend third-rate private schools. And, the outcomes are similar in each income range, regardless of where the kids go to school. But, these statistics represent groups. Individual outcomes are different. Some kids need a smaller, more sheltered environment to learn.
I don’t think it’s ever possible to fully answer this question since the study was not randomized, i.e. it compared the outcomes for the kids whose parents chose to put them into private school vs. those that went into public school by choice or default. For all we know, the kids who ended up in private schools and showed the same results as their public school counterparts might have fared much worse in public schools. Among my circle of upper middle class parents, the kids who end up at private schools usually have some sort of special need (not necessarily of the medical nature) that the parents feel will not be addressed by a regular public school.
It’s times like these when I least regret not having children of my own (well, this and the fact that I spend 10-14 hours a day with dozens of other people’s teenagers!).
I’ve known a few academically mediocre 12 year-olds who managed to work their way into Ivy and other high academic colleges because of parental wealth.
Some of the kids around here start with a private SAT tutor in 7th grade and math lessons start in kindergarten.
Correlational/non-randomized studies do have their limitations, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to address this question from a correlational standpoint. Social scientists have sophisticated statistical modeling tools to help control for factors like that. Not 100% of course. But we can still draw a picture.
Unions were not behind the study. Robert C. Pianta is the Dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia and is internationally recognized as an expert in teaching and learning research. Arya Ansari, the second author, is a postdoctoral research scholar at the University of Virginia. This is a normal part of their research agenda.
Longitudinal studies, in particular, make up for a lot of the limitations that correlational studies have. These students were recruited at birth from hospitals across the country and followed for 15 years. The researchers controlled for maternal and paternal educational achievement, employment, and vocabulary. They also adjusted forsocial behavior and previous academic achievement (aka why some parents in similar economic brackets might choose a private school for their children rather than a public school, like special needs), and for a wide variety of neighborhood characteristics (including average block income and the wealth of the nearest public school). You can read about the full list of covariates in the full text of the study.
Does that mean that for any given individual child, private school is not a better choice than the local public? Of course not. Educational research like this looks at population averages. Specific individual children may have specific issues or needs that, in their given situation, might be better addressed by a specific private school. The study is saying though that, on average, private schools don’t give students any outcome advantage in ninth grade over public school.
The study is also not saying that private schools are useless and that individual students who go to private schools won’t find success. So the individual success of a specific student coming from a private school isn’t a relevant counterpoint to the research.
But…that would make family income the key underlying factor. Parental educational achievement, family culture and history, and support for education would be mediators in this case - the factors through which higher family income work.
Glad no one ever told me about that study when I was 14. Coming from a poor background meant I had no chance against someone else who came from a wealthy background. Hmm. Decades later, I can tell you that people write their facts to the thesis rather than vice versa. So I would take little issue with the assumption that wealth matters more than education or vice versa.
What wealthy kids will never have is hunger, grit and determination. The kind of determination that can only come from a kid who attends private school on a scholarship and goes home hungry. I was that kid. And I am thankful for the opportunities I have been given. My kids have never known want. They have lived a life where everything is provided. Will they be as successful financially. Who knows. Maybe. Success measured in terms of wealth is never really accurate. There are just too many variables. A better thesis would be, wealth is more important than private education in financial attainment.
Well that would be obvious given that money is often passed down. It’s a complete circle. Parents have money, they spend it on private education, then they pass it down. And the cycle begins again. So what’s the point of the article?
@marvin100 The issue with these studies is they throw away relevant data that doesn’t fit their thesis.
Really, so the same kids in a private school with access to all of the support structures and advantages ( not only art and literature but also things not even available in a public school) will not have advantages over kids in public school. Yes, and eating at McDonalds tastes the same as a five star restaurant. Please.
You cannot look at population averages without bringing in all the metrics. That’s my point. If you don’t consider that wealthy people are handing money down to their kids this study is meaningless. The point with any study is you need to create the right data set then look at the results. You can’t write some study then pull meaningless info from the air and call it a conclusion.
There are many parents in this country who have very little money and their kids will be hyper successful by the terms of this study. That is due to a number of factors none of which this study WANTs to consider. Why? Because they are more interested in proving their thesis than creating a proof based on relevant data.
@Happytimes2001 - what is your evidence for your accusations against Robert C. Pianta, the Dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia and an internationally recognized expert in teaching and learning research, and Arya Ansari, the second author and a postdoctoral research scholar at the University of Virginia?
Our friends bought a house in one of the best school districts in LA, so they wouldn’t have to keep paying private tuition and could instead put that money toward other uses. The house was more expensive than the prior home they were living in, but they really bought it for the school district and schools. They were very pleased with the improved education their kids received in the new public schools their kids enrolled in, as well as the community friends.