Private School Performance

• In Event: Challenges and Experiences of NAEP Across School Types and Socioeconomic Status

Abstract

NAEP has measured student achievement in mathematics and reading every two years at grades 4 and 8 since the 1990s. Private school participation in NAEP allowed for robust comparisons between public and private school student performance for these assessments from the early 1990s until 2013. In the last two administrations, private school results were reportable only for Catholic schools. NAEP also assesses mathematics and reading nationally at grade 12 and several other academic subjects, such as science and U.S. history, at all three grades. In most cases, private school results are reportable for only Catholic schools, given low participation by students in other types of private schools.

According to the latest demographic data collected by NAEP, private schools are attended by larger proportions of White and urban students than public schools. Additionally, private school students are less likely to be identified as having a disability or being an English learner.

Private school students have scored significantly higher than public school students since the first NAEP administration in the early 1990s for mathematics and reading, and this pattern continues in the most recent NAEP administrations. However, the size of these score gaps among private and public school students varies across grades and subjects, as well as the changes in these score gaps over time for particular subject-grade administrations. Score gaps in mathematics across grades 4, 8, and 12 are numerically smaller than the gaps seen in reading and science. Score gaps at grade 4 mathematics have significantly decreased since 1990 when compared to 2013. Moreover, the largest score gap declines in grade 4 mathematics occurred in the early 2000s, when public school students were making much larger score gains than private school students.

There are no other recent NAEP subject-grade administrations with single-digit score gaps between private and public school students, and score gaps have significantly declined in only two other administrations: reading grade 4 from 20 points in 2000 to 15 points in 2013, and U.S. history grade 8 from 21 points in 1994 to 14 points in 2014.

Finally, in recent years, grade 12 score gaps between public and Catholic school students are larger than score gaps at grades 4 and 8 for mathematics, reading, and science, with score gaps being larger for reading (26 points) and mathematics (23 points) than science (18 points) in 2015. For grade 12 reading, this score gap has significantly increased overtime, from 17 points in 1992 (first administration) to 26 points in 2015.

The tables at the end of this paper provide further details (see Tables 1-19).

Author

• Ebony Walton, U.S. Department of Education