Why Subsidize Independent Schools? Estimating the Effect of a Unique Canadian Schooling Model on Educational Attainment

Pierre Lefebvre,Philip Merrigan

doi:10.3390/math10040605

Abstract

Canada is recognized as one of the top 10 countries in secondary education according to PISA results. A particularly intriguing case in this country is the large system of highly subsidized independent schools in the province of Québec where students also perform extremely well in PISA testing. This paper uses the year 2000 PISA cohort of 15-year-olds in Québec to estimate the ATT effect of independent schooling on educational attainment. We find large, positive, robust, and statistically significant effects of independent schooling on attainment. The robustness of the results to omitted variable bias is addressed through a sensitivity analysis for matching estimators.

Highlights

There is undoubtedly a movement taking place around the western world in the last decades towards the liberalization of schooling choices
Analytical framework This study aims to estimate the average treatment on the treated (ATT) of independent schooling on high school graduation rates and postsecondary trajectories which are: 1) enrollment in CEGEPs, these are two- and three-year colleges leading to university degrees, two-year programs are geared for admission in universities, while three-year programs lead to a technical degree, many students stop schooling once they have received a three-year technical degree ; 2) university attendance and university attendance in programs regulated by professional orders
These studies include those pursued with the National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth (NLSCY) led by Statistics Canada from 1994 to1995 through 2008 to 2009 (Lefebvre, Merrigan and Verstraete, 2011; Haeck et al, 2014), or produced with international surveys such as PISA (Lefebvre, 2015; Lapierre, 2016 or administrative data (Azimil, Friesen, and Woodcock, 2015)

Summary

Introduction

There is undoubtedly a movement taking place around the western world in the last decades towards the liberalization of schooling choices. Canada, where independent schools play an important part in the country’s education systems, has received significant attention because 15-year-olds students achieve much higher average PISA scores than most OECD countries (regularly in the top 10 or 15 countries or regions in reading, math, and sciences) with apparently a more equitable distribution of educational achievement (Coughlan, 2017) It has many similarities with other Western nations with regards to its education systems, the country has unique cultural, linguistic and historical attributes. At the same time were adopted significant restrictions designed to protect minority religious rights during a time when there was a significant controversy brewing between Protestants and Catholics in Canada over the parochial or non-denominational nature of school boards These special protections were part of a solemn compact and historic compromise between Québec and Ontario, Canada’s main founding provinces. The Constitution of Canada provides protections for language-based school systems (Anglophone and Francophone school systems in seven provinces (British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia)

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Results

Conclusion