A Think Twice Review of:

1) Are Private High Schools Better Academically than Public High Schools? 2) Monopoly Versus Markets: The Empirical Evidence on Private Schools and School Choice

Think Twice - Dec 12, 2007

Publisher/Think Tank - 1) Center on Education Policy (CEP) 2) Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation

Author(s) -

These two reports come to different conclusions about whether private schools are better than public ones at educating students. The CEP report found no advantage for either public or private schools using the National Education Longitudinal Study database. The Friedman report used the Educational Longitudinal Study database and presents evidence that private schools produce more benefit.

Reviewer(s) - Jaekyung Lee, State University of New York at Buffalo

Lee’s review finds that there is little actual difference between the findings of the two reports – and little difference between public and private schools. The most that can be concluded from the two reports taken together is that “students generally learn in public high schools about as well as in private high schools.” Lee also presents his own, independent cross-examination of the two data sources used in the reports.