Private Schools
Parents have the strongest interest in their children’s learning. Providing them with choice among different schools will create incentives for schools to offer best quality. Additional choice and competition can create incentives for cost containment and performance-enhancing innovation by allowing parents to choose those schools that will be most effective for their child. Even if choice among public schools is limited, privately managed schools can provide alternatives when accessible to all students. Competition among schools can thus lead to improved outcomes. Even if poor families were less likely to exert their freedom of choice, they could benefit from higher achievement due to increased competition.
Student outcomes are indeed substantially higher in countries with larger shares of privately managed, but publicly funded schools. The distinction between management and funding is crucial: Obviously, private schools can hurt equity if they charge high fees. But existing evidence suggests that, if combined with public funding, private management can be conducive notably for disadvantaged students, whose choices may be particularly restricted in systems that confine public money to publicly managed schools.
A national example in line with this general pattern is the Netherlands, where parents are generally free to choose whatever school they wish for their children. Three quarters of students in the Netherlands attend privately operated schools. At the same time, the constitution requires that all schools receive public funding regardless of their management. Evidence suggests that the resulting competition is one determinant of the high student achievement in the Netherlands.
Non-technical contributions:
Competition from Private Schools Boosts Performance System-wide (with M.R. West). VOX, 2.12.2010
School Choice International: Higher Private School Share Boosts Test Scores (with M.R. West). Education Next 9 (1): 54-61, 2009
How School Choice, Autonomy, and Accountability Impact Student Achievement: International Evidence (with M.R. West). In: C.L. Glenn, J. De Groof, and C. Stillings Candal (eds.), Balancing Freedom, Autonomy and Accountability in Education, Volume 4, Nijmegen: Wolf Legal Publishers, 275-298, 2012
Here you can learn more about my research on this topic.
My most important academic paper on the topic is:
‘Every Catholic Child in a Catholic School’: Historical Resistance to State Schooling, Contemporary School Competition and Student Achievement across Countries (with M.R. West). Economic Journal 120 (546): F229-F255, 2010
I provide an overview of early work in:
An International Perspective on Private Schools. In: M. Berends, M.G. Springer, D. Ballou, H.J. Walberg (eds.), Handbook of Research on School Choice, New York: Routledge, 501-518, 2009
Public-Private Partnerships and Student Achievement: A Cross-Country Analysis. In: R. Chakrabarti, P.E. Peterson (eds.), School Choice International: Exploring Public-Private Partnerships, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 13-45, 2009