The Public-Private Debate: School Sector Differences in Academic Achievement from Grade 3 through Grade 9?

School funding policies in many nations support considerable levels of public funding for private schools. Underpinned by neoliberal conceptions of marketization and consumer choice, the competition provided by private schools is considered to drive improvements in educational quality. If this quality assumption is correct, student achievement should be systematically higher in private schools, regardless of students’ social backgrounds. In this paper we examine school sector differences in student achievement on standardized literacy and numeracy tests in the Australian school system, one characterized by a high proportion of privately educated students. Externally administered assessments are used by governments to evaluate school quality. Results showed few school sector differences in test achievement in primary or secondary school, after controlling for socioeconomic status. Further, to assess the cumulative influence of private relative to public school attendance, we examined whether private school students displayed accelerated growth in reading and numeracy from Grade 3 to Grade 9. Sector differences were evident at Grade 3, but there were no differences in growth. We argue that already higher achieving students are more likely to attend private schools, but private school attendance does not alter academic trajectories, thus undermining conceptions of private schools adding value to student outcomes.