As Good As Private Schools In Raising Math Scores, Study Says

The results of the study appear in the Rosetta stone language
May issue of the education journal Phi Delta Kappan. These data provide strong, longitudinal evidence that public schools are at least as effective as private schools in boosting student achievement, according to the authors, education professor Christopher Lubienski, doctoral student Corinna Crane and education professor Sarah Theule Lubienski.The new study is the first published study to show that public schools are at least as effective as private schools at promoting student learning over time, they say.Combined with other, yet-unpublished studies of the same data, which produced similar findings, we think this effectively ends the debate about whether private schools are more effective than publics, said Christopher Lubienski, whose research has dealt with all aspects of alternative education.This is important, he said, because many current reforms, such as No Child Left Behind, charter schools and vouchers for private schools, are based on that assumption.The debate essentially began three years ago with the publication in Phi Delta Kappan of a previous study by the Lubienskis, which challenged the then-common wisdom supported Rosetta Stone German Levev 1-5
by well-regarded but dated research that private schools were superior.In that 2005 study, they found that public school students tested higher in math than their private school peers from similar social and economic backgrounds.In another, more-extensive study in early 2006, they built on those findings, and also raised similar questions about charter schools.Both studies were based on fourth- and eighth-grade test data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).The conclusions of the husband-and-wife team seemed crazy radical at the time, Sarah Lubienski said, and generated significant controversy. They were supported, however, later in 2006, with similar findings in U.S. Department of Education studies comparing public schools with privates and with charters, which looked at NAEP test data on both math and reading.(Unlike literacy, math is viewed as being less dependent on Rosetta Stone Italian Levev 1-5
a student s home environment and more an indication of a school s effectiveness, Sarah Lubienski said.)Critics of these previous studies, however, have cited the lack of longitudinal data showing the possible effect over time of different types of schooling. The studies of NAEP data were only snapshots, they said, showing student achievement at a single point in time. The studies did not address the possibility that some students may have entered private school at a lower level of achievement. Put another way by Sarah Lubienski, school type alone doesn t explain very much of why these scores vary … in truth, whether the school is public or private doesn t seem to make that much difference. The researchers go on to write that they personally see private schools as an integral part of the American system of education and there are many valid reasons why parents choose private schools and why policymakers may push for school choice. Academic achievement, however, may no longer be one of those reasons, they write. Claims that simply switching students from one type of school to another will result in higher scores appear to be unfounded. They suggest moving away from a simple focus on school type and instead examining what happens within schools.