Education
Poor, urban students did about as well in public high schools
By Lisa Schencker
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Poor, urban students with similar family and economic backgrounds generally don't do any better in private high schools than in public ones, according to a Center on Education Policy study released today.
It's a finding Jack Jennings, president of the center, which is pro-public schools, said has implications for debates about voucher programs nationwide.
Utahns will vote in November whether to implement a program that would give voucher money to students who want to transfer from public to private schools, start kindergarten in private schools or low-income students who are already in private schools.
"We may be arguing about the wrong thing," Jennings said. "We should be looking at whether parents are helping kids do well in school."
According to the study, three main factors influence how well a student will do in high school: how well a student does before high school, the income and resources parents provide and parental involvement in school-related activities.
The study looked at achievement data, such as SAT scores and assessment results, for 1,003 low-income, urban students from 1988 to 2000 to reach its conclusions.
Representatives from different sides of Utah's voucher debate said they agree the argument shouldn't be about public versus private schools.
"The campaign has never been focused on one being better than the other," said Parents for Choice spokeswoman Leah Barker. "Our campaign has always been about offering parents the opportunity to choose a good education for their children."
Kim Campbell, president of the Utah Education Association, which is against vouchers, said the findings of the study are no surprise.
"I think this points out what we've been saying all along," Campbell said. "This isn't about public versus private. It's not about school choice. This is about who pays for the choice and who pays for private school enrollment."
According to the study, the only type of private schools that generally show greater achievement than public ones are Catholic holy order schools, meaning schools run by orders such as the Jesuits, but not by a diocese. Only 34 of the 1,003 students studied attended such a school. Also, students who attend independent, private high schools also tended to have higher SAT scores than those in public schools.
That finding suggests that private schools aren't any better at teaching subjects but might give students better test-taking skills or enroll students with higher IQs, according to the study.
Derek Keenan, vice president for academic affairs at the Association of Christian Schools International, said about 400 largely minority schools in his association do perform better on some national tests than students in public schools. Students at those schools are generally 12 to 14 months ahead of their peers on average nationwide, he said.
"The private school advantage is nimbleness," Keenan said. "We can move on things."
The study also found that students who went to private high schools had no more job satisfaction at age 26 than their peers who went to public high schools.
Study author Harold Wenglinsky said his findings show schools and families should focus on getting parents more involved and creating more activities and programs to support students.
"We're arguing about adult issues," Jennings said. "Let's look at kids and see what helps them do well."
lschencker@sltrib.com
3 comments:
Is this supposed to be an indictment against vouchers?
An anti-voucher group did the study, and the worse they find is that private school students do just as well as public school students with similar backgrounds?
Is this bad news for vouchers? Not when you consider the fact that on average, private schools spend less per student than public schools.
Imagine if researchers found a treatment for cancer that did just as well as any other treatment but cost much less. Wouldn't we all be ecstatic about that finding?
Furthermore, the study only provides snapshots of High School students' performance on the SAT and even states that it's in elementary schools where the biggest difference can be made. So how many of the low-income private schools students studied went to public elementary schools? Also, how do elementary school students compare to each other if that's where it really matters?
Other questions to ask, what's the graduation rate for children with similar backgrounds in private and public school? How many go on to college? What's the difference in the percentage of low-income students from both types of schools that even takes the SAT? Who cares if they're scoring the same if the percentage of low-income kids from each type of school is widely different. Just being at the point to take the SAT is a big step.
Bottom line: private schools do just as well at a lower cost.
And when you live in a state with a lot of kids per worker and a low median per capita income, lowering costs is always a good idea.
What ever Jeffrey, aka Dave.
Here is the news: PRIVATE SCHOOLS DON"T HOLD EDGE!
What else needs to be said?
According to rankings found on the Sutherland Institute web site (utahschools.org) there were few private schools eligible for the voucher program that were even in the top 100 academically rated schools. Public schools out ranked private schools by a huge margin. Of the voucher eligible private schools, most offer a level of education pitifully inferior to public education.
The fact that there is no income ceiling on voucher eligibility tells me that the real agenda of the voucher program is to get the taxpayer to share the expense of sending the children of wealthy families to private schools. I am voting NO on Referendum 1. Why should I have to pay for the private schooling of a child whose parents earn more money than I do while my own childs public education budget is reduced? HB148 just doesn't make sense.
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