Ed gap universal, federal study says
By Maria Garriga, New Haven Register, July 19, 2006

A federal study suggests that the educational achievement gap that bedevils public schools also haunts private schools. “In other words, the achievement gap is not simply a public school phenomenon, but one that exists throughout the private school system as well,” said Marc Porter Magee of ConnCAN, a statewide nonprofit advocacy group working to close the educational achievement gap.

The study analyzed test results from more than 6,900 public schools and 530 private schools for grade four, and 5,500 public schools and 550 private schools for grade eight.

The NAEP, accustomed to crunching student test scores nationally, produces The Nation’s Report Card for the U.S. Department of Education. In this latest study, the NAEP analyzed 2003 test results in math and reading for grades four and eight. The researchers controlled for variables such as gender, race, eligibility for free or reduced lunch, parents’ level of education.

“By and large, the study showed when you adjust for demographics, it wipes out almost all the advantage private schools have. The reality is that private schools did outperform public schools. When you apply hierarchical, linear models and control for selected student groups, there was almost no difference,” said Mike Bowler, the Washington, D.C.-based spokesman for the Institute of Education Science, the federal agency that oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which conducted the study.

He declined to explain why there was so little difference between private and public school test scores when controlled for demographics, but adds that the study supports previous findings. “We are a statistical agency, we don’t do the why,” Bowler said.

The study authors included a number of caveats and added that the study is one of “modest utility.”

About 10 percent of American students, about 5.12 million, attended 28,384 private elementary and secondary schools in the United States in fall 2003, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.

“I’m no statistician, but I don’t know what conclusions you can draw when you compare 7,000 public schools to 530 private schools,” said Kathleen Lyons Wallace, assistant head master and dean of academic affairs at the elite Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford. “Just because a school is a public does not mean it is good or bad. Just because a school is private does not mean it is good or bad. We see great kids coming to our school from both private and public schools,” Lyons Wallace said.

Administrators at the Hopkins School, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious private schools, concurred.
“Studies that evaluate student or school performance exclusively in terms of test scores, that disregard a particular school’s purpose ... do not serve a clear educational purpose,” said Barbara Riley, headmaster of Hopkins.
School reform advocates, however, see the study as offering sound analysis that confirms a national education achievement gap, which leaves children from low-income families, inner cities and minority races lagging far behind the national averages.

“I think the report is a reaffirmation that all schools receiving public money should be held to the same standards of transparency and accountability for results. The report is also a reminder to parents to not assume that having your child in a particular type of school — be it a district school, magnet school, public charter school, or private school — is a guarantor of a quality education. Parents need to make informed choices for their children,” Magee said.