Private or Public schools seems to weigh on most people´s mind. Though my previous blogs was just about the quantity of private schools for different GINI indexes, a lot of discussion has come up. I also found a lot of discussion points on the Internet. http://www.toddseal.com/rodin/2006/02/public-is-not-private-faulty-comparison-2/ Quite interesting. But the latest research study by the Friedman Foundation http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/friedman/research/ShowResearchItem.do?id=10082 comes out clearly that students in private education out performed the students in public education system.
There was also another discussion on the same blog about USA education vs Europe http://www.toddseal.com/rodin/2006/02/faulty-comparison-american-public-schools-versus-the-world/. There are many such comparative studies on the internet. But here general conclusion is always that Europe is definitely lagging US. Some studies are even aimed at finding the cause for this. Example http://www.oenb.at/de/img/paper_krueger_tcm14-10448.pdf.
I’m going to call you on that Friedman Foundation study. Since they are obviously biased in favor of voucher/private schools, I wonder about the integrity and reliability of the study. I don’t know anything about the Friedmans, but a quick look around their site raised my suspicions.
And even if “students in private education out performed the students in public education system,” that very well could be due to many of the reasons that I listed, not because the quality of instruction is any different. I don’t question whether or not private school students do better (and what metric are you using to determine that? graduation rate? college admittance? AP/IB participation? something else?), I question why that might be the case. Lots of folks say it’s because public education doesn’t deliver the goods. I say it’s because those in private schools already have many cards stacked in their favor.
In your blurb about Europe: “general conclusion is always that Europe is definitely lagging US” Yeah? I always hear that it’s the other way around, that the US is far behind Europe. Again quickly glancing, that Krueger paper seems to be more about differences in GDP and vocational studies than quality of general education. What did I miss there? A brief scan certainly isn’t enough to pick out everything important in a 20-page research summary, but I didn’t see a lot suggesting that the quality of education in the US is better than education in the EU.
Thanks for the links, by the way. Glad you found my writing worth linking to and discussing.
Comment by Todd — November 25, 2007 @ 12:42 am
Well as you might have seen the report the performance evaluation is based on the percentage of graduation. As I am not in US, I am not aware of the situation there. But in a country like India, a private school would easily refuse a student if he or she is found to be not “good enough for them”. In fact there are incidents where students have not been allowed to attend the qualifiying exams because there is a chance of missing their targets. But then they also have to satisy their “sponsors”. So they take this extra effort. In public schooling the school cannot refuse anybody. Put it in one way, the public school has a responsibility to educate somebody while private school they have a responsibility to give a return on the investment. You are very right in saying that the private have cards stacked in their favour.
Well the report is more targeted to higher education where US is always considered to be better. Yes I hear that they are behind in many ways. But you know statistics is science and not maths. Win my opinion the real GDP and future GDP of a country comes from the quality of higher education. Rather how well are you able to tap the top.. let us say..10% calibre. That is where US education system excels. It even attracts the best from all over the world and is able to exploit it too. Well, another “20 page report” to glance over in relation to this issue. http://www.bruegel.org/Public/PublicationPage.php?ID=1169.
Comment by premanand — November 25, 2007 @ 1:12 am
Yeah, the other thing about that Krueger paper is that it’s targeted at high education, since the US doesn’t have a vocational and college track. That’s yet another reason (one I’m pretty sure I mentioned in my articles) why comparing the US with Europe is absurd: since the US doesn’t track, we’re comparing 100% (or roughly that much) of the population with some kind of fraction on the college track in Europe. The college track is automatically elitist in Europe, where in the US it’s the only option.
That’s an interesting idea, that the GDP ties directly into the quality of education a country has. Do you have anything that makes that connection clear? What has lead you to have that opinion? I’ve never heard that before, but maybe I’m just not paying attention. The GDP rarely enters into my calculations as an English teacher.
Yup, I’m in the US and the reports here all say that Europe has a better public education system; intriguing to read that it’s the opposite where you are.
I’ll give that other paper you link to a glance a bit later.
Comment by Todd — November 25, 2007 @ 6:39 am
You are correct that comparisons are not directly possible atleast at school level. Though there are many studies for comparison. The most quoted and accepted in govt. levels is the PISA study http://www.pisa.oecd.org. Its studies in 2000 and 2003 woke up a number of countries’ Education Department including European ones like Germany. The 2007 report is due on Dec 7th and I can imagine we will have more surprises here. US is behind many European countries. Maybe that prompts the various comapaints I hear about US education system.
But the main reason the whole topic was the various studies about University ranking internationally(as seen in my earlier blogs) US is consistently ahead and not in small margins.
Actually it is not directly GDP.It is rather growth which then translates to current GDP. The topic of GDP ties with University quality comes with more research and innovation. More and more studies are proving that the reason for lag in growth rate in Europe wirh US is primarily related to the University Education Qualtiy, research development and innovation.
Comment by premanand — November 25, 2007 @ 7:51 pm
Great information
Comment by Educator — March 11, 2009 @ 6:04 am