The Heterogeneity of 'Private School Effect' in Italy (original) (raw)
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The Heterogeneity of the 'Private School Effect' in Italian Primary Education
CESifo Economic Studies, 2015
In this study, we have carried out an empirical investigation on the potential differences in school performance between pupils attending public schools and those attending private schools in the most densely populated region of Italy (Lombardy), employing a new dataset of about 77,000 students in the final or fifth year (grade 5) of around 1,000 schools. This is the first study to be carried out on the effects of private schooling in primary education in Italy. Our analysis uses an Instrumental Variables (IV) methodology to test the effectiveness of the voucher plan implemented by the regional government - the Region. The results show that, on average, there is no statistically significant “private school effect”. However, when exploring the potential heterogeneity of such effect, we did find that attending a private school is associated with higher performance in standardized test scores for two categories of pupils: immigrants and those from a relatively disadvantaged socio-economic background. From a policy perspective, we believe that private schools at primary level can serve disadvantaged pupils better and so help to improve equal opportunities throughout the entire educational system. These results challenge previous evidence about the role of private schooling in the Italian educational system.
Private school enrolment in an Italian Region after implementing a change in the voucher policy
Journal of School Choice, 2015
This article estimates the effect of an administrative change in a voucher policy implemented by an Italian Regional government. The voucher was initiated in 2000, and is intended to help families that want to enroll their children in private schools. In 2008, the policy was changed, making the administrative procedure required for obtaining the voucher easier, and integrating additional financial aid to it. The effect of this change is estimated by a panel econometric analysis that compares the prechange and postchange proportions of first-year students enrolled in private schools with that of other regions, controlling for some demand and supply–driven factors that affect families’ propensity to choose private schooling. The policy modification was found not to have affected the proportion of students who enroll in private schools, across all the three (primary, junior, and upper secondary) educational levels. The change still may have been beneficial, however, from the standpoint of easing the paperwork burden for existing private school students.
Private or public school advantage? Evidence from 40 countries using PISA 2012-Mathematics
Εκπαίδευση, Δια Βίου Μάθηση, Έρευνα και Τεχνολογική Ανάπτυξη, Καινοτομία και Οικονομία
It is known that in most countries, students in private schools outperform students in public schools in international assessments. However, assessing the true effect of private school attendance requires addressing selection and sorting issues on both observables and unobservables. The existing empirical evidence on the private school effect mostly covers OECD and Latin American countries, with little evidence on other parts of the world. There is recent emerging country specific evidence doubting the existence of a private school advantage. I use PISA 2012 data for Mathematics and two different methodologies to derive baseline and bias-corrected estimates of the private-dependent and independent school effect for 40 countries. A robust private school advantage if found only in a handful of countries. Public schools generally perform equally well as private subsidised schools and outperform independent schools. Accounting for both peer effects and selection is necessary when evaluating school effectiveness, especially in the case of independent schools.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2005
The paper approaches the issue of school choice in an indirect manner by investigating the effectiveness of public, private government-dependent and private independent schools in 19 OECD countries selected from the PISA 2000 survey for this purpose. In a multi-level approach we estimate these sector-effects, controlling for sociological characteristics of students and parents, school composition, teaching and learning conditions of schools and students' and principals' perception of the climate of their schools. The main explanation of the gross differences in mathematical achievement is the better social composition of private schools, both government-dependent and independent, which is a clear consequence of school choice. But our analysis also reveals that private independent schools are less effective than public schools with the same students, parents and social composition, while that private dependent schools are more effective than comparable public schools. The explanation of these remaining net differences in mathematical achievement seems to be the better school climate of private
理論と方法, 2010
We apply propensity score matching to the estimation of differential school effectiveness between the publicly funded private sector and the public one, in a sample of 26 countries. This technique allows us to distinguish between school choice and school effectiveness processes and thus, to account for selectivity issues involved in the comparison of the two. Concerning school choice, we found two patterns: a choice of the upwardly mobile parents for private schools and a preference for segregation by (lower-) middle class parents. As regards school effectiveness, our results indicate that, after controlling for selectivity, a substantial advantage in reading achievement remains among students in publicly funded private schools in ten out of the 26 countries.
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.
The Annals of Applied Statistics, 2011
In observational studies the assignment of units to treatments is not under control. Consequently, the estimation and comparison of treatment effects based on the empirical distribution of the responses can be biased since the units exposed to the various treatments could differ in important unknown pretreatment characteristics, which are related to the response. An important example studied in this article is the question of whether private schools offer better quality of education than public schools. In order to address this question, we use data collected in the year 2000 by OECD for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Focusing for illustration on scores in mathematics of 15-year-old pupils in Ireland, we find that the raw average score of pupils in private schools is higher than of pupils in public schools. However, application of a newly proposed method for observational studies suggests that the less able pupils tend to enroll in public schools, such that their lower scores are not necessarily an indication of bad quality of the public schools. Indeed, when comparing the average score in the two types of schools after adjusting for the enrollment effects, we find quite surprisingly that public schools perform better on average. This outcome is supported by the methods of instrumental variables and latent variables, commonly used by econometricians for analyzing and evaluating social programs.
School choice and student performance: Are private schools really better?
1997
Are private schools really better than public schools, or is it simply that better students attend private schools? Although a number of recent studies find that students perform better in private schools (more specifically, Catholic schools), others do not. Typically, however, the instruments used to adjust for nonrandom selection are weak. This study employs uniquely detailed local instruments and jointly models selection into religious and nonreligious private high schools, relative to public high schools-improving instrument power in predicting private sector attendance to roughly three times that of prior studies. Failing to correct adequately for selection leads to a systematic upward bias in the estimated treatment effect for religious schools, but a downward bias for nonreligious private schools.
The Private and Social Return to Schooling in Italy
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
We estimate the private (individual) and social return to schooling in Italy and four macro regions. Our estimates take into account the effects of schooling on employment and wages as well as the key features of the Italian tax and social insurance system. We find that the individual return to schooling compares favorably to the return to financial assets (especially in the South). At the social level, the available infrastructure-capital data indicates that the return to schooling exceeds that to infrastructures in the South.