Comparisons of Private and Public Schools: What Can We Learn?

Abstract

The previous chapter argues that comparisons of the performance of public and private schools can be misleading. This chapter examines in detail recent research providing such comparisons with the goal of clarifying what lessons can be drawn. The chapter also explains why the recent comparisons have puzzled, and in some cases infuriated, many public school educators. I begin by providing background on the best known of the recent studies. On April 7, 1981, at a conference attended by more than four hundred educators and the press, James Coleman announced the findings of research that he had conducted with Thomas Hoffer and Sally Kilgore on public and private high schools in the United States. Their principal finding was that Catholic schools and non-Catholic private schools are more effective in helping students to acquire cognitive skills than public schools are. Coming at a time of widespread criticism of public education and presidential support for tuition tax credits for families that use private schools, this finding was widely reported in the press and evoked a range of spirited reactions. Critics and supporters responded to Coleman, Hoffer, and Kilgore’s (henceforth CHK) work with articles and editorials with lively titles such as: “Coleman Goes Private (in Public),” “Lessons for the Public Schools,” “Coleman’s Bad Report,” and “Private Schools Win a Public Vote.” Over the succeeding months CHK’s work remained visible as critiques of their research and reanalyses of the data they used appeared in a variety of journals, in some cases accompanied by lengthy responses by CHK. Another wave of interest was sparked by the publication and subsequent reviews of CHK’s High School Achievement: Public, Catholic, and Private Schools Compared, in which they presented their final research findings. As a result of the wide range of responses to CHK’s work and the numerous symposia in which CHK have debated their critics in print, there is now ample material available to any reader interested in forming a judgment about the quality of the research that produced their main conclusion.