Yet another study (the full study is posted at: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20060715report.pdf) that tells us virtually nothing for the following reasons:

A) It's of little value to compare test scores across schools (public, private, charter, religious, etc.), even adjusting for race, income, etc. because STUDENTS AREN'T RANDOMLY ASSIGNED! Some parents send their kids to private school because they're really smart, whereas sometimes it's the exact opposite -- and sometimes it has nothing to do with the kid OR the quality of the school (some parents want their kids to go to a school affiliated with a particular religion, for example). The gold standard is to compare PROGRESS OVER TIME. An analysis of 20 studies that used this methodology shows that in the great majority of cases, charter school students were making more progress.

B) No-one is claiming that ALL public schools are terrible and ALL private schools are great. Off the top of my head, of the 90,000 K-12 public schools in this country, I'd guess that 80% are at least OK -- it's the 20% that I'm focused on (and the low-income, minority students who disproportionately attend them)!!! There are two goals: i) Improve the failing public schools; and ii) Move students from failing public schools to better schools, both public and private.

The Education Department reported on Friday that children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools. The exception was in eighth-grade reading, where the private school counterparts fared better.

The report, which compared fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math scores in 2003 from nearly 7,000 public schools and more than 530 private schools, also found that conservative Christian schools lagged significantly behind public schools on eighth-grade math.

The study, carrying the imprimatur of the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the Education Department, was contracted to the Educational Testing Service and delivered to the department last year.

It went through a lengthy peer review and includes an extended section of caveats about its limitations and calling such a comparison of public and private schools “of modest utility.”

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July 15, 2006

Public Schools Perform Near Private Ones in Study

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/15/education/15report.html

WASHINGTON, July 14 — The Education Department reported on Friday that children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools. The exception was in eighth-grade reading, where the private school counterparts fared better.