3 Questions with Chris Lubienski
“The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools”
Follow me @CLub_edu
1. LEeM: Your most recent book is entitled: “The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools”. What was the motivation for writing this book?
Chris Lubienski: It was actually just an accidental discovery. Sarah, my co-author and spouse, was using some federal data to study mathematics instruction and thought it made sense to consider the different types of schools, since we know that public and private schools, in general, serve different types of students. When she included “public” and “private” in her models, she noticed that public schools were getting higher scores, which struck her as odd. She called me over to look at it, and I was also puzzled, because it went against decades of thinking on private schools being more effective. We know that private schools get higher raw test scores, but we also know they tend to serve more affluent families. So the question is whether those higher scores are due to private schools being better, or because they are serving students with advantages associated with academic success. In previous decades, prominent researchers had concluded that private schools were – at least in their analyses – more effective organizations, getting better results, even for children from less advantaged families. So, we decided to do more in-depth analyses, looking at different types of private and public (including charter) schools, and used different nationally representative data sets on mathematics achievement, school and home factors for over a third of million children. But our initial overall patterns held up, indicating that public schools are actually more effective.
So, these results struck me as particularly interesting. This is especially true in view of the fact that the findings of this massive study did not support the thinking underlying much of the current education reform movement, where charter schools and vouchers are premised on the idea that the public sector is less effective. Our initial paper caused some controversy, so we decided to explain our research in a book, published by the University of Chicago Press. Since we first found these results, other researchers have come to similar conclusions.
2. LEeM: What is the free market approach and why do you believe it will not work in the public education arena?
Chris Lubienski: Not many people are arguing for a completely “free market” approach to education, which would mean “consumers” are paying out of their own pockets for as much schooling as they want in an unregulated environment. Instead, most market advocates in education are calling for increases in the use of particular market mechanisms like consumer choice and competition between autonomous schools (like charter schools) to reform public education. They still see some role for the state in funding and, at least to some degree, regulating schools, although schools are to be more entrepreneurial and autonomous, and must compete for the choices of consumers. However, such choice- and deregulation-oriented reform policies in education should be seen in the larger context of the global growth of the market in many areas of life, including public goods and services. In that sense, many of these reforms are “marketizing,” if not “privatizing,” public education.
As to whether or not mechanisms like choice and competition will “work” in education… it depends on what purposes and ends are in play. Some investors and school management organizations might contend that these policies will “work” based on their bottom lines. And many families are happy to have more options for where to send their children. But the overall evidence on achievement in choice programs is pretty disappointing. And those disappointing results have substantial costs. For instance, much research finds a connection between choice programs and greater levels of segregation… not something we really want for a public school system.
Many choice advocates think that giving schools greater autonomy and forcing them to compete for students will compel schools to do a better job, or go out of business. While there is certainly an appealing logic to this claim, the data — including what we examine in the book — do not support it. My own research suggests that autonomy has downsides as well. Forcing schools to compete can also cause them to embrace practices that aren’t always for the best — for instance, choosing their students based on social or academic factors in order to improve the school’s ranking, or using popular but ineffective curricula.
3. LEeM: There are some who consider the continued investment of tax payer dollars in public education as simply pouring good money after bad; in your opinion is investing in public schools a sound investment?
Chris Lubienski: Obviously, there’s little doubt that there is inefficiency and under performance in public education, just as there is in any large endeavor, public or private. And public education has become more bureaucratized as we’ve shouldered schools with more burdens and responsibilities. Additionally, we know that there are chronic areas of failure in our public school system, particularly in areas with high levels of poverty that lack community support and resources for effective public schooling. Decades of research, including ours, shows that these out-of-school factors matter immensely, often trumping teacher quality and other organizational issues that are the focus of the current wave of education reform. So, blaming schools alone is extremely myopic.
If, as your question suggests, public education is a bad investment, then our research indicates that putting money into private and charter schools appears to represent an even worse alternative in terms of outcomes. Of course, people want more from their schools than just academic achievement. So we have to ask ourselves which types of institutions are best positioned to achieve the multiple goals that we want for education, and then ask if those institutions are being adequately funded considering the obstacles they face.
That said, we know that investment in public education has substantial benefits, both individually for those getting an education and for the larger society. Our research demonstrates that, despite all the challenges we throw at them, public schools are relatively effective, at least compared to private sector alternatives.
BIO:
Christopher Lubienski is a Professor of education policy, and the Director of the Forum on the Future of Public Education at the University of Illinois. He is also Sir Walter Murdoch Visiting Professor at Murdoch University in Western Australia. His new book is The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools (with Sarah Theule Lubienski, University of Chicago Press). His research focuses on education policy, reform, and the political economy of education, with a particular concern for issues of equity and access, including geo-spatial analyses of charter schools, and research on innovation in education markets for the OECD. Lubienski held post-doctoral fellowships with the National Academy of Education and with the Advanced Studies Program at Brown University. He was a Fulbright Senior Scholar for New Zealand, where he studies school policies and student enrollment patterns. He has authored both theoretical and empirical papers on questions of innovation and achievement in school choice systems, including peer-reviewed articles in the American Journal of Education, the Oxford Review of Education, the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Policy, and the Congressional Quarterly Researcher. His work has been featured in news media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, La Liberacion, Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Times Education Supplement, and Business Week. In addition to School Choice Policies and Outcomes: Empirical and Philosophical Perspectives (with Walter Feinberg, SUNY Press, 2008),
Chris Lubienski: It was actually just an accidental discovery. Sarah, my co-author and spouse, was using some federal data to study mathematics instruction and thought it made sense to consider the different types of schools, since we know that public and private schools, in general, serve different types of students. When she included “public” and “private” in her models, she noticed that public schools were getting higher scores, which struck her as odd. She called me over to look at it, and I was also puzzled, because it went against decades of thinking on private schools being more effective. We know that private schools get higher raw test scores, but we also know they tend to serve more affluent families. So the question is whether those higher scores are due to private schools being better, or because they are serving students with advantages associated with academic success. In previous decades, prominent researchers had concluded that private schools were – at least in their analyses – more effective organizations, getting better results, even for children from less advantaged families. So, we decided to do more in-depth analyses, looking at different types of private and public (including charter) schools, and used different nationally representative data sets on mathematics achievement, school and home factors for over a third of million children. But our initial overall patterns held up, indicating that public schools are actually more effective.
So, these results struck me as particularly interesting. This is especially true in view of the fact that the findings of this massive study did not support the thinking underlying much of the current education reform movement, where charter schools and vouchers are premised on the idea that the public sector is less effective. Our initial paper caused some controversy, so we decided to explain our research in a book, published by the University of Chicago Press. Since we first found these results, other researchers have come to similar conclusions.
2. LEeM: What is the free market approach and why do you believe it will not work in the public education arena?
Chris Lubienski: Not many people are arguing for a completely “free market” approach to education, which would mean “consumers” are paying out of their own pockets for as much schooling as they want in an unregulated environment. Instead, most market advocates in education are calling for increases in the use of particular market mechanisms like consumer choice and competition between autonomous schools (like charter schools) to reform public education. They still see some role for the state in funding and, at least to some degree, regulating schools, although schools are to be more entrepreneurial and autonomous, and must compete for the choices of consumers. However, such choice- and deregulation-oriented reform policies in education should be seen in the larger context of the global growth of the market in many areas of life, including public goods and services. In that sense, many of these reforms are “marketizing,” if not “privatizing,” public education.
As to whether or not mechanisms like choice and competition will “work” in education… it depends on what purposes and ends are in play. Some investors and school management organizations might contend that these policies will “work” based on their bottom lines. And many families are happy to have more options for where to send their children. But the overall evidence on achievement in choice programs is pretty disappointing. And those disappointing results have substantial costs. For instance, much research finds a connection between choice programs and greater levels of segregation… not something we really want for a public school system.
Many choice advocates think that giving schools greater autonomy and forcing them to compete for students will compel schools to do a better job, or go out of business. While there is certainly an appealing logic to this claim, the data — including what we examine in the book — do not support it. My own research suggests that autonomy has downsides as well. Forcing schools to compete can also cause them to embrace practices that aren’t always for the best — for instance, choosing their students based on social or academic factors in order to improve the school’s ranking, or using popular but ineffective curricula.
3. LEeM: There are some who consider the continued investment of tax payer dollars in public education as simply pouring good money after bad; in your opinion is investing in public schools a sound investment?
Chris Lubienski: Obviously, there’s little doubt that there is inefficiency and under performance in public education, just as there is in any large endeavor, public or private. And public education has become more bureaucratized as we’ve shouldered schools with more burdens and responsibilities. Additionally, we know that there are chronic areas of failure in our public school system, particularly in areas with high levels of poverty that lack community support and resources for effective public schooling. Decades of research, including ours, shows that these out-of-school factors matter immensely, often trumping teacher quality and other organizational issues that are the focus of the current wave of education reform. So, blaming schools alone is extremely myopic.
If, as your question suggests, public education is a bad investment, then our research indicates that putting money into private and charter schools appears to represent an even worse alternative in terms of outcomes. Of course, people want more from their schools than just academic achievement. So we have to ask ourselves which types of institutions are best positioned to achieve the multiple goals that we want for education, and then ask if those institutions are being adequately funded considering the obstacles they face.
That said, we know that investment in public education has substantial benefits, both individually for those getting an education and for the larger society. Our research demonstrates that, despite all the challenges we throw at them, public schools are relatively effective, at least compared to private sector alternatives.
BIO:
Christopher Lubienski is a Professor of education policy, and the Director of the Forum on the Future of Public Education at the University of Illinois. He is also Sir Walter Murdoch Visiting Professor at Murdoch University in Western Australia. His new book is The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools (with Sarah Theule Lubienski, University of Chicago Press). His research focuses on education policy, reform, and the political economy of education, with a particular concern for issues of equity and access, including geo-spatial analyses of charter schools, and research on innovation in education markets for the OECD. Lubienski held post-doctoral fellowships with the National Academy of Education and with the Advanced Studies Program at Brown University. He was a Fulbright Senior Scholar for New Zealand, where he studies school policies and student enrollment patterns. He has authored both theoretical and empirical papers on questions of innovation and achievement in school choice systems, including peer-reviewed articles in the American Journal of Education, the Oxford Review of Education, the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Policy, and the Congressional Quarterly Researcher. His work has been featured in news media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, La Liberacion, Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Times Education Supplement, and Business Week. In addition to School Choice Policies and Outcomes: Empirical and Philosophical Perspectives (with Walter Feinberg, SUNY Press, 2008),