What Have We Learned about the Benefits of Private Schooling?

n 1980, the U.S. Education Department, working with the National Opinion Research Center, began a panel study of high school students known as the “High School and Beyond Study.” The first wave of the study collected achievement test scores for approximately 50,000 high school students who were in either their sophomore or their senior year of high school. The survey also compiled detailed characteristics of schools and, for more than half the students involved, detailed follow-up surveys concerning school, work, and other activities. The survey design yielded a sample that included a disproportionate share of private schools. When James Coleman of the University of Chicago took on the task of evaluating the first wave of data, he decided to exploit this unique aspect of the survey. In 1981, Coleman and two of his colleagues, Sally Kilgore and Thomas Hoffer, presented a report to the National Center for Education Statistics entitled Public and Private High Schools, which concluded that the selection of superior students into private schools cannot explain the higher levels of achievement in private schools. Therefore, the authors argued that Catholic and other private schools are, as a rule, more effective institutions of learning than public schools. This report and subsequent publications by Coleman and his associates ignited a heated and often acrimonious debate among social scientists concerning the relative educational performance of public and private schools. For example, Coleman, Kilgore, and Hoffer (1981) found that, in a population of students from similar backgrounds, private school students exhibit higher achievement and attainment. Critics, however, claimed that this result simply reflected inadequate controls for the individual traits and family background characteristics that foster academic success. Put simply, even if one knows a considerable amount about a student’s background and academic aptitude, the fact that her parents are willing to spend I