Search

This paper estimates public and private (household) spending per student on education in early childhood, primary and secondary education in Spain, in public educational institutions and in publicly-funded private educational institutions. We use 2007 data from the Household Spending on Education Survey and the Statistics on Public Spending on Education. Public expenditure on education per student in publicly-funded private educational institutions was 49.9% that spent on public educational institutions. The cost assumed by families in public institutions was 38.7% that spent on publicly-funded private educational institutions. The total expenditure per student on publicly-funded private educational institutions was 66.9% that spent on public educational institutions. Enrollment in publicly-funded private educational institutions implies a reduction of public expenditure on education and the transfer of part of those educational expenses to families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking as an empirical basis some of the data from a questionnaire applied to a sample of approximately eight hundred parents from three public secondary schools, this paper discusses how various categories of parents organise «hierarchies of excellence» through the «arguments for choice» that they prioritise when choosing their children's school for entrance into secondary education (year 10 of schooling, equivalent to the year 4 of compulsory secondary education in Spain - ESO). The analysis of the data highlights that, in all segments of parents, a group can be found that attaches great importance to academic indicators; in addition, an unequal concentration of these groups was verified in the three establishments studied, which reflects a predominance of different types of public in each school. Thus, even though the importance attributed to the «arguments for choice» varies according to the educational level of the parents, in the cases studied the «hierarchies of excellence» are distinguished, above all, by the school variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]