Private vs. Public Schooling: The Role of School Composition

Elke Claes and Leonard Moulin

No 304, Working Papers from French Institute for Demographic Studies

Abstract: Publicly funded private schooling is a common feature of many education systems, yet its implications for educational equity and effectiveness remain contested. While private schools often exhibit higher student achievement, the sources of this advantage are not well understood. In particular, differences in student composition — especially in terms of socioeconomic status (SES) — are likely to play a key role. This paper examines how school-level SES composition contributes to achievement differences between public and private schools. Using propensity score matching (PSM) on data from 22,441 French ninth-grade students, we find that private school students outperform their public school peers in math and French, with especially large effects for low-SES students, an underrepresented group in private schools. While school composition explains these effects only to a limited extent, it accounts for most of the performance gap among high-SES students. These findings highlight which students benefit most from private schooling and point to the need for further research into the mechanisms underlying performance differences across school sectors.

Keywords: Private school; Public school; Educational achievement; Propensity score matching; Lower secondary education; School composition; Performance gap; France; REUSSITE SCOLAIRE / EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT; CLASSE SOCIALE / SOCIAL CLASSES; ENSEIGNEMENT PRIVE / PRIVATE EDUCATION; FRANCE / FRANCE; ENSEIGNEMENT PUBLIC / PUBLIC EDUCATION (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.48756/ined-dt-304.0425

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