How Effective Are Private Schools in Latin America?

Abstract – Using multilevel modelling and data from 10 Latin American countries, this paper provides new evidence on the relative effectiveness of public and private schools. There are substantial differences in the achievement of private and public schools, usually around one-half a standard deviation. A small portion of these differences is accounted for by the higher socioeconomic status of students in private schools. A quite substantial portion is explained by the varying peer group characteristics in private and public schools. After accounting for peer characteristics, the average private school effect across all 10 countries is zero, though with some variance around this mean (the effects range between-0.2 and 0.2 standard deviations). Evidence on selection bias is inconclusive, but the paper argues that these effects may constitute an upper bound to the true effects.