The Effectiveness of Public and Private Schools from a Comparative Perspective.

In this paper the effectiveness of public, private government-dependent and private independent schools in 19 OECD countries is analysed with the PISA 2000 data, which gives educational outcomes of 15-year-old students in reading and mathematics. In a multi-level approach we control stepwise for sociological and demographic characteristics of students and parents, behavioural and attitudinal characteristics of students and parents, school composition, teaching and learning conditions of schools and the school climate. Our analysis shows clearly that private government-dependent schools are more effective than comparable public schools with the same students, parents and social composition. The main explanation of this higher effectiveness is the better school climate in the former, in comparison to the latter. The different learning and teaching conditions in private government-dependent and public schools do not explain differences in the effectiveness. Our analysis also reveals that private independent schools are less effective than public schools with the same students, parents and social composition. The main explanation of their initially higher effectiveness is the better social compositions of these schools. These effects are more or less equal in these 19 OECD countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]