Variation in Effectiveness Between Private and Public Schools: The Impact of School and Family Networks*

Abstract

Abstract Building upon the assumption that cohesion between different levels of the school is essential to the schools’ effectiveness, the hypothesis is tested that a close kinship between school and parental community causes a positive effect on student outcomes in primary schools. Recent theories regarding the effects of ‘functional communities’ on academic achievement mainly focus on the characteristics of the parental community that surrounds a school. Recognizing, however, that schools differ regarding their responsiveness to the role of parents and other actors around the school, our expectation is that a definition of functional community which comprises interactions between characteristics of the parental network around the school and the governance structure of the school offers a better explanation of variation in student achievement. Based on a national sample of 90 schools for primary education in the Netherlands, our analysis shows that the differences in math achievement for public and private primary schools are mediated by characteristics at both the family and the institutional level. It also indicates that characteristics at the institutional level are conditional for the effects of parental networks around schools.