Mathematics Performance in Public and Catholic Elementary Schools: Explaining the Disparity

For several decades it has been a common belief that private schools do a better job of educating the nation’s children than do public schools. Public Choice theorists in particular argue that public schools are inefficient and ineffective because they are accountable to bureaucracies, while private schools are superior because they are accountable to consumers and must strive for improvement in order to attract and retain students. However, recent research has challenged this assumption, providing strong evidence that public elementary school students are making greater gains on mathematics assessments than their Catholic school peers, particularly in early grades. This dissertation builds upon this research and examines possible explanations for this using the ECLS-K dataset. Specifically, this study determines how public and Catholic elementary schools differ in several areas including school or class size, school climate, autonomy, parental involvement, teacher characteristics, and teaching practices. The study then investigates if any such differences might explain why public school students make greater mathematics gains than Catholic school students between 1st and 3rd grades. The study gives particular attention to teacher curricular focus, student subscale score performance, and the concentration of items in the ECLS-K mathematics assessment to determine if Catholic school students’ smaller mathematics test score gains might be explained by a mismatch between what students learn and what is tested. Contrary to Public Choice Theory, findings indicate that public schools’ bureaucratic regulations for teacher education, curriculum and instruction might actually help instead of hinder their performance.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Elementary Education

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Crane, Corinna C.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Gutierrez, Rochelle
• Robinson-Cimpian, Joseph P.
• Lubienski, Sarah T.
• Lubienski, Christopher A.

• Catholic schools
• public schools
• Public Choice Theory
• teacher certification
• teaching practices
• education policy, mathematics instruction, mathematics achievement, multi-level modeling
• Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class (ECLS-K)

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2010 Corinna C. Crane

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/18303

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/18303