High school students who studied at a private school continue their education, in a much greater proportion, at CEGEP or university than those educated in the regular public high school sector. Does such a statistic show that public schools are not performing well, or even that they should be abolished?
Let’s not jump to hasty conclusions.
Taken out of context, the statistic is misleading, as it does not solely, or even primarily, reflect the performance of schools. It is likely to reflect more the influence of the student’s environment, including the level of education and the income of his parents, to name only these two easily quantifiable factors.
However, mostly selective private schools currently serve clienteles from families that are on average more educated and wealthier than those in the regular public sector.
In this context, the two types of schools face different challenges. To judge their performance without considering these differences is simply illogical.
Admitting that it is useful to do so, deciding on the respective performance of private and public schools requires effort and ingenuity. Ambitious studies have also been conducted to try to determine whether students who are actually similar at the start have better chances of success in the private sector than in the public sector.
These studies are conducted with samples of students from low-income families who normally would not have been able to consider the private option. Among the participating students, it is a draw that determines who will be educated privately rather than publicly. In such a study, if students who have attended a type of school do better on average, it is necessarily because of the school.
What do these studies say? Public school advocates will be happy to hear that the verdict is not clearly in favor of private schools. Overall, the results show that the private school promotes success a little more. However, the benefit is modest and concerns only certain materials. Moreover, this advantage is only observed in certain school systems. In other words, private is not necessarily a better option than public.
Draw, then? Not necessarily.
The results of the studies by draw concern only pupils from less wealthy families. Private schools could be particularly good at bringing success to their traditional clientele, that is, students from relatively educated and wealthy families. These students are underrepresented in draw studies.
In addition, let’s not forget that the Quebec school system is unique in many respects. In some countries, for example, private schools are underfunded, which is not the case in Quebec. The results of draw studies conducted abroad may therefore not apply here.
Finally, these studies leave an essential question unanswered: does grouping students at risk of failure in a (public) school increase this risk beyond what it was at the start? For example, is being in class with several demotivated students demotivating in itself? Some studies seem to indicate that this is unfortunately the case, but their results are not entirely convincing.
In short, it is currently impossible to decide on the relative efficiency of private and public schools, particularly in Quebec. When in doubt, it would be prudent not to blame the public schools.