Friday, December 01, 2006

Are Public Schools Outperforming Private Schools?

A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle reported findings indicating that the significant extra expense involved in sending children to private schools could, in fact, be a waste of money.

Apparently, test scores are showing that public school students may actually be getting a better education than those attending private schools, (especially conservative Christian schools).

While this seems to fly in the face of “common sense,” the numbers are what they are, and they don’t seem to support the notion that (generally speaking) private schools are better than public schools; indeed, they seem to support the opposite conclusion.

Below is an excerpt from the beginning of the article:

“(07-15) 04:00 PDT Washington - The federal Education Department reported Friday that, in reading and math, children attending public schools generally do as well as or better than comparable children in private schools. The exception was in eighth-grade reading, where the private-school children did better.

The report, which compared fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math scores from nearly 7,000 public schools and more than 530 private schools in 2003, also found that conservative Christian schools lagged significantly behind public schools when it came to eighth-grade math.” 

To read the article in its entirety, click here.

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