By tracking longitudinally a sample of American children (n = 1,097), this study examined the extent to which enrollment in private schools between kindergarten and ninth grade was related to students’ academic, social, psychological, and attainment outcomes at age 15. Results from this investigation revealed that in unadjusted models, children with a history of enrollment in private schools performed better on nearly all outcomes assessed in adolescence. However, by simply controlling for the sociodemographic characteristics that selected children and families into these schools, all of the advantages of private school education were eliminated. There was also no evidence to suggest that low-income children or children enrolled in urban schools benefited more from private school enrollment.
AbdulkadirogluA.PathakP. A.WaltersC. R. (2015). School vouchers and student achievement: First-year evidence from the Louisiana scholarship program. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w21839
2.
AchenbachT. M. (1991). Manual for the child behavior checklist. Burlington, VT: Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont.
3.
AustinP. C. (2011). An introduction to propensity score methods for reducing the effects of confounding in observational studies. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 46, 399–424.
4.
BelskyJ.VandellD. L.BurchinalM.Clarke-StewartK. A.McCartneyK.OwenM. T. (2007). Are there long-term effects of early child care?Child Development, 78, 681–701. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01021.x
5.
BerendsM.WaddingtonR. J. (in press). School choice in Indianapolis: Effects of charter, magnet, private, and traditional public schools. Education Finance and Policy.
6.
CaldwellB. M.BradleyR. H. (1984). Home observation for measurement of the environment. Little Rock, AK: University of Arkansas at little Rock.
7.
CarlsonD.ChingosM. M.CampbellD. E. (2017). The effect of private school vouchers on political participation: Experimental evidence from New York City. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 10, 545–569.
CaufmannE.WoolardJ. (1999). The future outlook inventory. Unpublished manuscript, MacArthur Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice.
10.
CostaP. T.McCraeR. R. (1985). The NEO personality inventory manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
11.
DeAngelisC. A.BurkeL. M. (2017, July14). Does regulation induce homogenization? A school fixed-effects analysis of three voucher programs in the United States. Paper presented at the APPAM International Conference, Brussels, Belgium. Retrieved from https://appam.confex.com/appam/int17/webprogram/Paper20682.html
12.
DunnL. M.DunnL. M. (1981). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
FeigenbergB.RivkinS.YanR. (February). Illusory gains from Chile’s targeted school voucher experiment. (NBER Working Paper No. 23178). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w23178
FlandersW.DeAngelisC. A. (2017). More graduates, less criminals? The economic impacts of the Milwaukee parental choice program. (EDRE Working Paper No. 2017-05). Retrieved from https://ssrn.com/abstract=2911282
17.
FunkM. J.WestreichD.WiesenC.StürmerT.BrookhartM. A.DavidianM. (2011). Doubly robust estimation of causal effects. American Journal of Epidemiology, 173, 761–767. doi:10.1093/aje/kwq439
18.
GreshamF. M.ElliottS. N. (1990). The social skills rating system. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
19.
JacobsJ. E.LanzaS.OsgoodD. W.EcclesJ. S.WigfieldA. (2002). Changes in children’s self-competence and values: Gender and domain differences across grades one through twelve. Child Development, 73, 509–527.
LubienskiC. A.LubienskiS. T. (2013). The public school advantage: Why public schools outperform private schools. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
22.
Medoff-CooperB.CareyW. B.McDevittS. (1993). The Early Infancy Temperament Questionnaire. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 14, 230–235.
23.
MillsJ. N.WolfP. J. (2017). Vouchers in the bayou: The effects of the Louisiana scholarship program on student achievement after 2 years. Educational Evaluation & Policy Analysis, 39(3), 464–484. doi:10.3102/0162373717693108
24.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network. (2001). Nonmaternal care and family factors in early development: An overview of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 22, 457–492.
25.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network & DuncanDuncanG. J. (2003). Modeling the impacts of child care quality on children’s preschool cognitive development. Child Development, 74, 1454–1475.
26.
O’BrienR. H.PiantaR. C. (2010). Public and private schools: Do classroom processes vary by school type?Elementary School Journal, 110(3), 409–419. doi:10.1086/648984
27.
PiantaR. C.BelskyJ.VandergriftN.HoutsR.MorrisonF. J. (2008). Classroom effects on children’s achievement trajectories in elementary school. American Educational Research Journal, 45, 365–397.
28.
RadloffL. S. (1977). The CESD scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1, 385–401.
RosenbaumP.RubinD. (1983). The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika, 70, 41–55. doi:10.1093/biomet/70.1.41
ShakeelM. D. (2017, July14). Does private schooling improve intervational test scores? An instrumental variable fixed effects analysis of the impact of private schooling on PISA scores. Paper presented at the APPAM International Conference, Brussels, Belgium.
StataCorp. (2009). Stata user’s guide, release 11. College Station, TX: Stata Press.
35.
TurnerM. L.EngleR. W. (1989). Is working memory capacity task dependent?Journal of Memory and Language, 28, 127–154.
36.
UrquiolaM. (2016). Competition among schools: Traditional public and private schools. In HanushekE. A.MachinS.WoessmannL. (Eds.), Handbook of the economics of education (pp. 209–237). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier.
VandellD. L.BelskyJ.BurchinalM.SteinbergL.VandergriftN. (2010). Do effects of early child care extend to age 15 years? Results from the NICHD study of early child care and youth development. Child Development, 81, 737–756. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01431.x
39.
VandellD. L.BurchinalM.PierceK. M. (2016). Early child care and adolescent functioning at the end of high school: Results from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Developmental Psychology, 52, 1634–1645.
