Students at Canadian private schools have more educational success than their public school peers because of their backgrounds and classmates, not the schools themselves, Statistics Canada says in a new report.
The study followed 7,142 Grade 10 students, focusing on standardized test scores in reading, math and science at age 15, as well as the educational qualifications they had earned by age 23.
Private school students had better test scores (about nine per cent higher on average) and more educational success after high school.
None of the differences, however, could be attributed to school resources and practices, Statistics Canada says.
"Two factors consistently account for these differences," the report released on Tuesday said. "Students who attended private high schools were more likely to have socio-economic characteristics positively associated with academic success and to have school peers with university-educated parents."
The report says uncovering the cause-and-effect between private school and student success is challenging because of self-selection: wealthier families are better able to enrol their children in private schools, and private schools may have more stringent admission criteria.
Once in the school, private school students are more likely to have classmates who may exert a positive influence.
In short, students attending private schools had backgrounds that led to good grades.
"For example, compared with public school students, higher percentages of private school students lived in two-parent families with both biological parents; their total parental income was higher; and they tended to live in homes with more books and computers," the report says.
This of course is one of my pet peeves, the vilification of public school in favor of private school and home school.
What this article does not elaborate on is that public schools are also required to teach children with learning disabilities, language barriers, and who are living in poverty.
Of course a school that can hand pick its students is going to have better test scores.
However the real test of a school is its ability to teach the child who struggles with their education, lacks parental support, and goes to be hungry every night.
And that is being done all across this country by under appreciated professionals who entered the field of education not to get rich or earn praise, but do give something valuable to back to their country.
Just imagine how much easier that job would be if we gave public schools a tenth of what we spend on our military.
Let's face it, not all private schools are equal. If you have a private school where your child is taught that dinosaurs roamed the earth along with people or where slavery wasn't such a bad thing after all, you are not going to have "good results" on any scale. Old, established private schools where the curriculum is more classical than not, where the teachers are better educated, where the parents have more books at home than the Bible, you will have better students.
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
This is so self-evident, it's amazing there's a study on it. Children who have parents who 1) are very interested in their education and 2) can afford to invest in their education (including providing after-school tutors if necessary), are going to do better in school than your example of a child who goes to bed hungry every night and is raised to believe education is only for the rich.
ReplyDeleteRight on! The challenges faced by teachers in regular schools are not taken into account when comparing the two. If only education was placed in high regard, instead of weapons and wars, imagine how great this country could be. Unfortunately, the gop/tp party do not like THINKING people. Look at the dumb people they promote, Klingenschmidt, Gohmert, Cruz, Paul, Christire, Walker, Perry the list goes on and on. They vilify President Obama because he is highhly intelligent, and evolved enough to try to resolve problems without violence. The gop want to bomb every country in the Niddle East, except Israel. The gop/tp party is the Kardasian family, compared to say the Clinton, Obama, Clinton and Carter families. Vacuous versus brains.
ReplyDeleteWTF are you talking about lol?
DeleteThere's another reason that doesn't seem to be mentioned in the article - although I confess I skimmed it. Private schools test students for enrollment and can kick undesirable students out whether for academic difficulties or minor behavioral problems. Public schools are obligated to educate them.
ReplyDeleteYes!
DeleteOne of the most important reasons why students in private schools do better is because they have involved parents who value quality education. As a parent who sent both of my children to a private primary and middle school after poor experiences in public school I can tell you that the teachers in both were fair to excellent. Critical to the teachers success with students was a small classroom and very involved parents who routinely communicated with teachers and administration and who made sure students made their classwork and homework a priority. Those parents most likely read to their kids as children. Not all parents in the school were college educated or economically advantaged as the school historically has made a strong effort to recruit low income families to the school. Both kids went on to a public high school in a wealthy neighborhood where, although class sizes were big, there was again strong parental involvement and once again fair to excellent staff.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter is now a special education teacher who has taught in difficult inner city schools and now teaches in a charter school on a reservation where the student body is 95% native american and hispanic. These are kids whose low income parents made a choice to send their children to a school with smaller class size and strong academics because they value education As a result kids are engaged, attentive and involved. The teachers are again fair to excellent according to my daughter. Administration backs their policies and teachers and as a result the school does well. Engaged and supportive parents always seem to be left out of the equation.
Sheesh
I worked with a student years ago whose family came from Eastern Europe. The father had left school after third grade and the mother hadn't gone to school at all. Neither parent spoke any English, despite being in this country for several years. In addition, the family was of a culture that didn't believe in educating women. To make matters even more challenging, the student had a significant hearing loss and her father would not permit her to wear hearing aids at home.
DeleteDoes anyone think that student was going to be as successful as a student from an upper middle class family whose parents had college educations? Due to the hard work of the teachers, support staff and the student herself, she is now doing quite well in high school, but it's been a struggle every step of the way for everyone involved.
But if she'd been a failure and dropped out of school, who would get 100% of the blame?
I'd like to see comments from people who attended Catholic schools and high schools. I lived in blue collar America and public schools were affordable..private schools way to expensive.
ReplyDeleteI will state that in college I seemed to lag behind the snooty Catholic girls... We too had many rules to live by but we heard horror stories of Nuns with rulers, etc. We also heard tales of going to confession and questions the priest asked.
We all have to work within and clean up our own backyards before we go out there and preach our shit.....
I went to Catholic school until 6th grade but I was there during a strange period of time (1965 - 1972). My older sisters attended during the years when the nuns ran a strict and unquestioned classroom, and rulers smacked on the knuckles were commonplace (I suspect my oldest sister was on the receiving end more than a few times!).
DeleteHowever, by the time I started school, that kind of teaching-through-terror was falling out of favor, but they were just starting to embrace the idea that nuns who were teaching just MIGHT want to go to college first. As a result, we didn't have the strict traditional Catholic school discipline OR teachers that were actually qualified to teach.
My sisters had experienced a very difficult transition to our public school in 9th grade because our school went from 7th to 12th grade, and friendships had already been long established by the time they arrived.
Since I wasn't getting much of an education anyway, I convinced my parents to switch me to the public school in 7th grade. It was definitely the best decision for me, and I went on to graduate from high school, college and graduate school with honors.
Catholic schools, 1972 - 1984. Affordable tuition for my middle-class family. No nuns with rulers, no "snooty" students. Learned about evolution.
DeleteI grew up in a communist country (Czechoslovakia). In grade 2 and 4 we had the same female teacher, a total sadist. I was a good little girl, but she always found an excuse to hit me. She had a long thin swishy stick from a willow tree, and she loved to hit me on the palm of my hand. As hard as she could!
DeleteI sent ours to Public Schools and had no regrets whatsoever. We were actively engaged with our kids when it came to education and communicated regularly with their teachers to make sure they were doing their work or why they got the grades they did.
ReplyDeleteAll three are in college and doing well on their own. Do they have occasional difficulties understanding? Yes, but they're not afraid to ask for help.
You've hit on one of the most critical factors in producing a successful student - involved parents who place value on education.
DeleteMany of the other obstacles (poverty, lack of resources, etc) can be overcome to a great extent if the parents stay active and make sure their kids do what they're supposed to do.
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