Private school students fare better than public peers

TORONTO

From Grade 10 math tests through to graduate school, private school students fare better academically than their peers in public schools, according to new research by Statistics Canada.

But the gap, experts suggest, is not due to better teaching or more resources in private schools as much as to the advantages private school students gain from having parents who tend to be wealthier and more highly educated.

“Time and time again, studies constantly show that the parents’ education ends up being strongly correlated with the child’s educational success,” said Marc Frenette, a Statistics Canada research economist who co-wrote the report with Winnie Chan.

Whatever the reasons, the educational achievement gap is wide and clear. The roughly 6 per cent of Canadian teenagers who attend private schools — from the grandest boarding school for the global elite to the most modest independent religious school — gain advantages that increase as the students continue into higher and graduate education.

On standardized reading, math and science tests administered in Grade 10, for example, private school students outperformed public school students by 8 or 9 per cent.

By following a cohort of 7,142 students born in 1984, the researchers were also able to show that, by age 23, 35 per cent of the private school students had graduated from university, compared with 21 per cent for the public students.

Private school students were also more likely to pursue graduate or professional degrees, like medicine, law or dentistry, by 13 per cent to 5 per cent.

A private school, in this research, was defined as one that controls its own affairs, such as hiring for example, as opposed to being under the authority of a wider school board. The designation is independent of financing, and so includes many religious schools.

Earlier research out of the University of British Columbia in 2012 came to an opposite conclusion, that public school graduates perform better at university math and physics courses in part because university is more like a public school, with less individual attention.

The Statistics Canada researchers took a broader sociological look, and by gathering demographic data on students, their peers and their parents, were able to point to specific socioeconomic factors as key drivers of the achievement gap, such as parental affluence and especially parental education.

“That’s the main one actually. Many studies point to that as being the main driver of student success,” said Frenette.

He said he is not sure how exactly that plays out — whether by reading more to children, helping with homework or just a greater general emphasis on education.

The Statistics Canada research showed parents of private school students had incomes 25 per cent higher. It also found 10 per cent of public school students had a parent who completed a graduate or professional degree, compared with 25 per cent of private school students. Much, however, remains unexplained.

In Canada, about one out of 20 15-year-olds attends a private school, with lower rates in the Maritimes and higher rates in Quebec and British Columbia.