Charter, Private, Public Schools and Academic Achievement: New Evidence from NAEP Mathematics Data
Christopher Lubienski
University of Illinois
club@uiuc.edu
Sarah Theule Lubienski
University of Illinois
STL@uiuc.edu
(January 2006)
National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education
Teachers College, Columbia University
525 West 120th Street, Box 181
New York, NY 10027
ncspe@columbia.edu

1 This project was funded through a National Assessment of Educational Progress Secondary Analysis Grant
(#R902B05017) from the National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences. The authors
would like to thank Jane Loeb, Eric Camburn, and Jay Verkuilen for their helpful comments on this work, and also
Corinna Crane, who provided valuable assistance on this project. Of course, only the authors are responsible for the
analysis and interpretations presented in this report.
2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This analysis of US mathematics achievement finds that, after accounting for the fact that private schools serve more advantaged populations, public schools perform remarkably well, often outscoring private and charter schools.

Recent debates have highlighted the issue of school sector as an important consideration in student academic achievement. In 2004, a report contending that charter school students scored
lower than students in public schools was fiercely contested.

Other studies were then released to demonstrate that charter schools produce greater gains in student learning. Similarly, studies of students using vouchers to attend private schools have ignited heated debates about whether or not these programs boost student achievement, especially for poor and minority students.

Common wisdom and past research holds that private schools achieve better academic results.

Assumptions of the superiority of private-style organizational models are reflected in voucher and charter programs, and in the choice provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. According
to this thinking, schools in the choice-based independent sector are the best model for improving achievement in public schools. Market-oriented school choice reforms are premised on the idea
that, by positioning parents as the driving force in the quest for quality, schools will be forced to improve when faced with competition from higher performing rivals.

However, new results from a study of a large, comprehensive dataset on US student achievement seriously challenge assumptions of private school superiority overall, and find substantial differences between different types of private schools. Based on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics exam, this analysis compares achievement in public, charter, and different types of private schools. When compared with other subjects (like reading, for instance), math is more heavily influenced by school than home experiences, so
studying math achievement provides clearer insights into the relative performance of different types of schools.

The 2003 NAEP samples are over ten times larger than in any previous NAEP administration, providing achievement and student, teacher, and administrator survey data on over 190,000 4th graders (up from 13,855 in 2000) in 7485 schools, and more than 153,000 8th graders (up from 15,930 in 2000) in 6092 schools. Earlier studies of charter schools based on these data were disputed because researchers had to rely on a web tool that did not allow for simultaneous analysis of multiple student- and school-level variables. This new analysis of the complete raw data employs advanced statistical techniques (hierarchical linear modeling) to study the relationship between school type and mathematics achievement while controlling for demographic differences in the populations served by the schools.

Charter, Private, Public Schools and Academic Achievement: New evidence from NAEP Mathematics

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