Thorough and Efficient Private and Public Schools

Introduction

The constitution’s requirement for school to be thorough and efficient is analogous to asking the school to operate at the highest level of productivity by providing for all students the highest-quality schooling at the lowest cost. However, for those schools that fall short to being comprehensive and efficient, they opt not for more effective operations but for a higher degree of outlays. This assumes that existing schools are efficient but inadequate only because of the limited resources. However there is no sufficient evidence to support that notion that an increase in financial support would alone boost the quality up to the standards.

By observing the private school quality, it may allow better view of the link between expenditures and school performance. Compared to public school, private school’s expenditure per student seems significantly lower. However private school students’ average performance is considerably higher. At the end of this study, it is suggested that for public school to be thorough and efficient, there is a need to attend to the lessons provided by private school.

The Private School Market

For many well-educated opinion leaders (and even fictional representations of the educational world through films and books) private schools are considered to be exclusive, expensive, secular institutions that serve the national’s economic, political and social elite.

   Mainly Religious Schools

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Center for Educations Statistics (2005), 11.6 percent of those students enrolled attend a private school that is likely to have a religious affiliation. Almost half attend Catholic schools, about 15 percent attend Evangelical Protestant schools, less than 5 percent go to Lutheran, and about 16 percent are enrolled to other religious schools (Jewish, Greek Orthodox, Islamic, and others) while the remaining percentage of those enrolled in private schools (about 17 percent) go to a nonsectarian private school. Overall, only about 2 percent of the school-age population is served by secular private schools, and only about 9 percent is served by private school with religious affiliation.

Private schools in the United States face a strong competition in the form of public school system. Public school has captured almost 90 percent of the schooling market functions under a substantial financial support from the government which lets it offer most services for free. In addition, there are several factions (such as teacher unions, school board associations, and others) that are determined to maintain the public school’s market position. Most of all, the semi-monopolistic position of the public school are irrefutably legitimate.

Only specific kinds of private schools were able to survive amidst the competition. Some are the exclusive ones that accommodate to those who have the funds for high annual tuition that must be paid out of after-tax income. On the other hand, some are private schools that cater to those with strong religious commitment. Several Catholics even came up with a low-cost system of education composed of members of religious orders sworn to the life-long oath of poverty.

However, during the twentieth century, given the increase in prices of tuition as women were less willing to takes the vows of poverty and labor costs continue to rise, Catholic and Lutheran school started to lose their grasp on the market. In addition, there were fewer church members eager to make financial sacrifices to pay for tuition given the presence of a free public school.

Regardless the intense competition, the size of private sectors remained relatively constant. Because even though the number of Catholic and Lutheran schools starts to diminish, it is eventually replaced by school from Evangelical Protestants. Their mission was centered on the preservation of a culture that disapproved of the rising secularization of the public school and of its liberal approach to sexuality.[1]

Thus the protection of religious and cultural traditions is still one of the forces that thrusts private education today. This observation was even more apparent as school vouchers were made accessible to low-income families with the purpose of reducing the cost of private schooling. Previous study showed that Catholics and Evangelical Protestants (especially those who are actively participating in their church) are likely to (accept or) request for a school voucher and have the probability of keeping their children in a private school.

Lastly for those belonging in the private sector, they are more likely to claim “religious development or multicultural awareness” to be one of the three of their most significant objectives for their school. Only a few, about 11 percent of public school principal, included this as one of their top goals.

   Cost-Sensitivity

Private schools cannot remain invariant to economic considerations. Fact is, majority of their patrons are from moderate income group and the school fees are not tax deductible. Thus, in spite of their clientele’s religious commitment, if private schools charge too high, they are face with the threat of pricing themselves out of existence. This caused the private school (in 2000) to charge fees per student below the average expenditure per student in public schools. Most probably private schools would have charged more if they believed the market can afford it. However since free services from public school are always available, private school must be practical in pricing their services.

This sensitivity to costs is more apparent to low income families as they cannot afford to send their children to expensive private schools. However when offered school vouchers, wherein the government would pay the tuitions, there is a sudden demand for private schooling.  On the other hand, if only a part of the fees are covered by the voucher, just of few of those who showed interest at the opportunity of enrolling their children in a private school would take on that chance. The instability in the demand for private school is certainly affected by the costs of the service.

Educational Expenditures in Public and Private Schools

Comparing the expenditures per student, private schools seem to spend considerably less per student than that of the public schools. This may be due to the moderate tuition fees offered by private schools so they could stay in the market. Given greater resources, public schools are able to offer more extensive services; have more elaborate administrative structure; even provide students free transportation to school; have focused educational services for those with mild to severe disabilities; and options for those with different language.

Other than the inferior facilities of private schools, their teachers are also paid significantly less than those in public schools. Presumably, this low income is one of the reasons for the quick turn over of teachers in private school and being left with less experienced teachers (about three years work experience). In public schools some teachers have more than 20 years of experience. Moreover, in spite of having more years of experience, income of principals in private schools falls short in comparison to that offered in public schools.

Altogether, private school can be judge financially insufficient by those state courts. In contrast with the public sector, private schools have inferior facilities, less experienced teachers, and less paid employees.

Clearly, private schools are at a disadvantage in convincing families that their services are worth the disparity in rate between free public school and the tuition of private school. The private school’s stand on religious identity and cultural values are significant in attracting enrollees, however it is hardly enough if they can’t offer a comparable instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic and other basic subjects. Parents may want to preserve certain values; still, acquisition of basic educational skills is also a top priority. In order to be comparable in education, the private school came up with productivity-enhancing tools that even the public school should emulate.

Organizational Solution

Private schools in contrast to public schools:

1.      School size are smaller

2.      Operate under less administrative complexity

3.      Broader age-structure

4.      Equally smaller classes.

   School size

On average, private schools are just about a third of public schools. The latter having three to four times more students compared to private schools. Regardless the claims that larger schools can provide a wider range of curriculum, most studies believe that smaller schools are considerably more educationally effective. Principals are able to maintain a tighter supervision on both staff and student. In addition a sense of community is easily created.

   Administrative Simplicity

Not only is bureaucratization is diminished, private school is also run under greater autonomy. Many of the private schools are formed independently as nonprofit institutions, having their own board of trustees that works above the school heads.

Some schools managed within a large institution (such as those operated by Catholic archdioceses) would have their central office delegate the decisions to the school level. School heads given certain leeway are allowed to establish policies and compensation they see fit. Even though some of schools may request for financial support (such as assistance from archdioceses), they are still expected to raise on their own the huge chunk of funds needed in the continuance of their operation.

            The simplicity in the private sector also allows teachers to focus more on their teaching rather than on other daily duties and paper works. Private school teachers also feel more involved in establishing policies such as setting the standards for student performance, the curriculum and the discipline guidelines.

   Two-Tier versus Multi-Tier System[2]

Even as the three-tier system has become increasingly popular to public schools, private schools still prefer the two-tier system. Although about 27 percent of public school enrollees are in the middle school, such institution (middle school) is almost absent in the private sector. Private school even came up with “combined” schools partly discounting the separation between elementary and high school.

            However regardless the popularity of middle school, it seems as if the two-tier system is more educationally productive. Some studies even observed that young adolescent students attending K-8 schools learn more and even outperform those in middle school.

   Class Size

It’s unclear if the private school administrator considers smaller classes more educationally efficient or if they just think of them as an important marketing tool. However, it seems that private schools opt to use their scarce resources in hiring more staff than paying higher salaries to teacher thus keeping the class size small or even smaller compared to public school. They prefer to have more staff over higher-paid staff.

   Co-Production

Apart from the organizational solutions listed above, there are still not sufficient in enhancing the productivity of private schools.  The most important is the practice of co-production, which is the ability of the private sector to enlist the services of others in the provision of educational services. Co-production occurs when a good is produced or a service is performed by those who do and do not receive monetary compensation (Ostrom et al. 1982). However co-production in reality is practiced by both the public and private sector. For public sectors, example would be the responsibility of maintaining the cleanliness of the streets is not only in the hands of the paid sanitary engineers, but also by ordinary citizens who discards their trash properly. For the case of the private sectors, products such as soft drinks, newspapers, and junk foods are purchased by putting a coin in vending machines. 

A popular principle of efficient retailing is transferring the cost of (co)-production from paid worker to unpaid customers. Thus in order to achieve this, company must first consider the interests and concerns of those not paid for their services. If trash cans are not emptied by paid workers, unpaid citizens would improperly dispose of their trash. If vending machines are not filled by employees, interested buyers would buy somewhere else.

Same thing can be considered in education. Paid employees are the teachers, principals, maintenance personnel, bus drivers and other personnel that tend to the school system. They are motivated to provide relevant services in part by the money they receive. Under certain conditions, these employees can be asked to leave.

            However educational co-producers, those who are not paid, cannot be asked to leave despite low performance. The most significant co-producer is actually the student. The other co-producers are the parents, relatives, and friends. Overall, the co-producers’ actions have more importance to the educational productivity rather than the paid producers.

            To gather cooperation from co-producers, private school must attend to their reasons and concerns. In order to encourage students in their own education, incentives may be both intrinsic and extrinsic, and both gradual (long-run) and immediate. It calls for an intrinsic reason when it comes to students educating themselves – such as love for learning. Such can be achieved by enhancing the student’s self-worth or by offering enjoyable educational experiences. Long term extrinsic incentives are usually getting the opportunity to enter college or achieving a high-paying job. To promote attention to long-term consequences teachers stress the importance of graduating high school and getting a college degree.  These incentives may be successful for some student, especially for those who are fast learners and have supportive co-producers who emphasize and remind them of the teachers’ lessons. However for some intrinsic incentives must be supported with short term extrinsic incentives such as lower minimum grade requirement in order to keep the student in school or promote them to the next grade.

   Co-production in Public and Private School

In general, private schools are better structured in motivating co-producers, primarily because it costs parents to send their children to school, and once a financial sacrifice is made they are more determined to make sure their money are not put to waste by getting involve in their children’s education. In addition, children may also appreciate the financial sacrifices of their parents.

Aside from family expectations, student also needs to satisfy the school’s expectation of them. They must pass the disciplinary standards of the school which have little tolerance to tardiness, excessive absences, fighting, cheating, disrupting of classes, and vandalism. These delinquent behaviors may be grounds for suspension or even expulsion. Not only do student need to meet such standards, they must also perform well academically, (pass the exams, submit assignments, etc) because if they do not achieve the required grades, they might not be invited to return the next school year. Though these principles are not entirely nonexistent in the public school, compared to private school, they are at much lower standard.

   Peer Culture

School expectations do not only create incentives for students, but also shape the internal peer culture of the school. When peer culture is molded by policies relying on intrinsic incentives such as offering fun learning, then peer groups acting as co-producers can become highly erratic, and can be a negative (as much as it can be a positive) influence on learning. This is significant in understanding the educational climate at schools. Parents believe that fighting, absenteeism, tardiness, vandalism and cheating were more likely to be problem if their children attend a public school. In addition, almost half of the public school teachers claim that the misbehavior of their student gets in the way of their teaching.  However in private school only about 25 percent of private school teachers report this as a problem.

Private schools are able to have a more productive educational climate with few expulsions of children. Young children admitted in private schools adjust to the standards set by the school and understand that if otherwise, they’d be suspended, and worse expelled. However private schools have potent fiscal incentives to try to keep as many of their student’s as possible – thus actual exercise of the system is rare.

   Social Capital

Social capital is the networks of relationships that yield positive benefits for the community more than the inputs of any particular member. Such social capital is created by strong and educationally supportive communities among parents and friends of the school under a healthy educational climate.

   Parental Communication and Involvement

Private school teachers are more likely to receive parental support on what they do, mainly because parents who pay for their child’s education are expected to have more incentive in supporting in the child’s education. However if parents somehow do not have any inclination to get involve, it is the responsibility of the private school to convince them otherwise. In contrast to public schools, private schools communicate with parents more extensively and involve them in various ways, such as attending school meeting, parent-teacher conference, and etc.

   Homework

The most direct way of having co-producer engage in the educational process is to require considerable amount of assignments. In the school’s perspective this is a form of low cost education, and this is probably one of the reasons teachers in private school are more likely to assign homework. In the study, there are more students from private school than from public school that do at least an hour of homework. And the fact that teachers require parent’s signature on the student’s assignment workbook, puts the responsibility of the child’s homework on the parents’ hands.

   Significance

The argument on public school adequacy weighing on financial consideration is formed under the assumption that the vital factors affecting education adequacy can be changed by fiscal policy. 

More money would mean higher salaries for the teachers and principals, offer more food to children, improve the services, enhance existing facilities, and build new intricate infrastructures.

However such strategies are generally unattainable to all (except for the most exclusive private school). To those who are running under a limited budget (a little more than a half of that of the public sector), they are expected to find inexpensive or costless means to improve learning. Private sector used organization tools such as keeping the school small, reducing bureaucracy, less transferring of student due to age-structure, and maintaining smaller class size. Most importantly and probably the secret to their success is their ability to include the support of co-producers. With the co-producers (students, peer, families and relatives) contributing to the education process, it becomes somewhat insignificant that the teachers are less well paid, less experienced, less credentialed than their public school counterpart. In spite of teacher being perceived to be the most important educational element, it is still recruitment of active and positive engagement of co-producer that is deemed to be crucial.

Student Achievement

Regardless of its financial inadequacies, private school performance is definitely not lacking as observed in their students. Private school students are observed to perform at a higher level than public school students. However there are still few that are suspicious that private schools do at least as well as the public schools at educating the students.

   Recent NAEP Findings

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the nation’s report card, found that in all aspects (math, reading, writing, or science) private school students were performing at a higher level. Even the improved National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) study model showed a consistent private school advantage.

   Systematic Comparison

However since the data used were based at a single point in time, it is difficult to estimate the range of the student’s learning, thus the need to turn to other research.

“High School and Beyond” survey was conducted by Coleman team in year 1980 and 1982 where in by testing a national sample of public and private sector students in two runs, the Department of Education was able to produce data on the determinant of academic gains in high school from a student’s sophomore to senior years. The result showed that private school students outperformed public school student, even after recognizable family background attribute were accounted for.

However like NCES study, the survey was found to be flawed in the methods used in collecting and evaluating the data. In the 1985 Sociology of Education issue there was upfront disagreement on the Coleman’s results. Later literature would come up with contrasting conclusion – some providing positive private school effects, others claiming no such effects. On the other hand, most researchers agree on one thing, and that is private schools assist in closing the education gap between ethnic groups. Some observations showed that Catholic schools seem to produce higher test scores for African-Americans. Similarly, urban minorities in Catholic schools do much better than comparable students in public school, whereas the impact on urban whites and suburban students are generally mixed.

In later studies, those who are enrolled in Catholic schools have greater likelihood of finishing high school and college and score higher on standardized tests. Catholic schools also have a substantial positive effect on black earning potential.  Also it was discovered that the effect of Catholic school in central cities were particularly significant.

Conclusions: The Road to Adequacy in Public Education

There is much to be learned from the private sector, their productivity is higher because they are doing equally well at little more than half the cost. Only the public sector’s access to the government funding allows them to remain in existence. However if public and private schools are placed in a much equivalent financial footing there is an expected quick shift to private schools – and public schools are well aware of this, hence their objections to any voucher initiatives.

Public schools are capable in applying the productivity-enhancement elements done in the private sectors. So rather than pursuing financial strategy (which was found to be illusive) to improve productivity, they just need to take certain organizational step (which is actually already being done in places where there’s strong competition) such as decentralizing authority at a building level, phasing out middle school and dividing high school to smaller units.

These are good first steps; however there is now a concern if public schools are able to do better in enlisting co-producers. Certain steps and conditions must be implemented in the public school system:

1. Student should not be moved up to a higher grade unless they are qualified.

2. Before they get their high school diploma, student must accomplish a certain level of achievement.

3. High school examination must be subject-based and comprehensive.

4. Scores must be available to employers and institutions of higher education.

These steps and many more would encourage reaching for higher levels of accomplishment.

In total, all of these will definitely make an impact on students, peers and families. Given that goals are well-identified, accomplishments are rewarded, failure and misdoings are penalized and hurdles in the learning process are removed, the education in the public sector is sure to be enhanced and can even be done at a cost well within the budget.

Unfortunately such reforms can’t be mandated by the courts nor search for adequate education can be legalized, however once the court understands the vital role co-producers play in the educational process, then the financial problems and concerns will be less of a priority.

Source:

Paul E. Peterson, “Thorough and Efficient Private and Public Schools”, In Eric A. Hanushek, Courting Failure: How School Finance Lawsuits Exploit Judges’ Good Intentions and Harm our Children, Stanford, CA: Hoover Press, 2006), pp 195 -234.  

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[1] Secularization of public school includes no more daily prayers, Bible readings or Christmas pageants. Lenient attitude towards sexuality includes explicit sex instruction, tolerance of homosexuality, and supplying of contraceptives.

[2] Two-tier system: division between elementary and high school

Three-tier system: division among elementary, middle, and high school

Elementary schools: those with at least one grade below five and no grade above eight

Middle schools: those with no grade below five and no grade above eight

Secondary schools:  those with no grade below seven and at least one grade above eight

Junior schools: those with seven-to-nine grade, also included as secondary schools

Combined schools:  those with at least one grade below seven and at least one grade higher than eight and schools with only ungraded classes (Peterson, Paul. “Thorough and Efficient Private and Public Schools”.)