Research says intelligence doesn’t depend on the school a child attends.
Australian researchers have confirmed a growing body of international research that finds the high cost of private school education does not give students an academic edge over their public school counterparts.
The study, which has been published in the Australian Journal of Labour Economics, found that once the more privileged backgrounds of private school students are taken into account, they fare no better in the education system than other children.
The research from the University of Queensland, the University of Southern Queensland and Curtin University examined the vexed issue facing many parents when choosing between a public or private education for their children.
Co-author of the study, Professor Luke Connelly, said primary students do just as well academically in either system.
“We’re looking at primary school kids here, these are kids in years three and five,” he said.
“And so this is the first study of its kind for Australia that shows at this young age that there are no differences between Catholic, independent and public schools.
“There’s actually some poorer outcomes for kids at Catholic schools interestingly. That’s also been mirrored in the international literature. There are some slighter poorer outcomes.
“An exception for kids in Catholic school is that some of the behavioural issues that we also look at, including in this case peer to peer relationships, the performance seems slightly better for Catholic school kids.
“But other than that, we don’t actually see any appreciable differences in academic performance.”
Some in the independent education sector dismissed the research while others argued the research took an “overly simplistic” view.
Yvonne Luxford, executive director of the Independent Schools Council of Australia, questioned the results.
“Even the preschool testing that they did in the paper, it shows that on the raw results there, the children in independent schools did score higher,” she said.
Related: Public or private schools: Which do we choose?
Ron Gorman from the Association of Independent Schools of Western Australia said one survey that looked at academic merit did not go far enough.
“When looking at results, it can be an overly simplistic view of what constitutes success because the measures are actually quite narrow,” he said.
David Robertson from the Queensland Independent Schools Association said the choice to send your child to a private school was centred on the individual needs of the child and not primarily academic results.
“The reason they make that sacrifice is they believe what those independent schools provide, in educational opportunities and educational programs, is what is in the best interests of their child,” he said.
Mr Robertson said parents of private school students were not paying to give their children an advantage but rather the “right” education.
“That money is parental contribution. That is what parents contribute to the costs of schooling,” he said.
“Well they’re paying to get an education they think is right for their child – that’s the point.”
The choice between public and private education may not make a difference to child performance but other factors like baby birth weight and who their parents are, is crucial.
Related: Public and private schools: 5 things you might not know
Children with a birth weight of less than 2.5 kilograms achieve significantly lower test scores later in life, particularly in grammar and numeracy.
Professor Connelly said the study found other factors that contribute to classroom performance.
“The other things that matter are the level of education of the parents, the number of books in the home, also the area – the residential neighbourhood and its characteristics – the household income, and interestingly enough as well the working hours of the mother,” he said.
“So as working hours increased for the mother, some of these test scores also decline a bit.
“And I guess that latter result really just shows some of the importance of the parental time input in relation to kids’ success at school as well.”
Meanwhile the working hours of fathers had no impact.
“We didn’t find any similar result for the males’ working hours and that’s an interesting point of difference,” Professor Connelly said.
The research also finds poorer results for school children from Indigenous backgrounds and those whose parents had not completed Year 12 at school themselves.
This article was originally published on ABC.
Top Comments
Want to see real improvement in public education, stop funding faith schools with tax payer funds. Redistribute the funds which were formerly given to private schools and give them to our underfunded public schools. If a school is private it stands to reason it should be able to function and thrive without tax payer assistance. After all over 75 percent of Australian students use the public system it stands to reason that is where our focus should be primarily.
Agree Samantha, low fee Catholic schools boom in the outer suburbs where they give the punters a way of isolating their kiddies from the poorer more feral neighbors kids. These schools are 80% plus funded from the tax payer. All these schools should be incorporated into the state system as they are in most Western countries many decades ago. They are the prime reason state schools in middle/low SES areas are marginalised.
So poor families cant aspire to better things for their children Sipper?
A low income single parent family isn't allowed to want the best they can afford for their child when the local school has children from 4 generations of welfare dependency and they see that as normal?
As a taxpayer, I am happy for some of my taxes to go to independent schools. The public high school in our area is pretty bad, most kids who continue on to year 12 don't do TEE subjects (not sure of the equivalent in other states, but the ones that count towards uni entry) and my niece struggled to get enough appropriate classes together to allow her to attempt to qualify. She wasn't allowed to move to another public school because she wasn't in the catchment zone. I want better for my daughter. I want more choices for her. I am sure that there are "feral" kids everywhere, but I make no apologies for wanting to give her the best chance with her education and it's not at our local public school. It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation - if the public schools were better, parents wouldn't be flocking to the low fee Catholic or independent schools. Our friends live in a more affluent area and their local government school is great - but their mortgage is astronomical. We all pay one way or another. I think the willingness and capacity of private schools to deal with behavioural issues is also a factor. I don't think you can blame the Catholic schools, they are just filling a perceived need.
"intelligence doesn’t depend on the school a child attends". - I never thought the school could affect someone's intelligence but that doesnt mean a more supportive, encouraging and possibly competitive environment doesnt produce better academic results. I dont know the exact figures but I am sure students from private schools perform much better in their HCS which is arguably when it matters the most (at least on paper). This could also be due to the fact that young people in more financially well off families don't have to work from a young age (I started at 14) and are unlikely to be newly arrived migrants who might struggle with the language (me again). Having said that, I attended a public school and I dont think it made too much of a difference once I was at Uni and in the workforce.