Great Public Schools for Every Child
GAO Reports on Privately Run Public Schools
Many Perform Worse than Publicly Run Schools
The federal government's General Accounting Office (GAO) reports that of the
schools it audited most privately run public schools perform no better and many
perform less well than publicly run schools. Private for profit companies have
contracts to manage public schools in about half of the states in the country.
The number of privately run public schools has increased dramatically in the last five
years, but the slightly more than 400 privately run public schools still account for
considerably less than one percent of all public schools, according to the GAO's
"Comparison of Achievement Results for Students Attending Privately Managed and
Traditional Schools in Six Cities" (PDF, 62 pages).
In Detroit, the GAO report says student test scores were lower in the privately
managed schools. Reading scores were lower in six of the district's eight privately
managed schools and math scores were lower in seven of the eight, compared with
similar traditional schools.
The same was true in two other cities, Cleveland and St. Paul, where student
scores in reading and math were significantly lower in schools managed by private
companies than in similar publicly run schools.
The report states that "...our study investigates the effect of school management
by comparing traditional and privately managed schools and by controlling for
differences in the characteristics of students attending the schools. In this way, our
study provides a different type of information than that typically found in school
report cards."
The GAO report also says, "Managed by 47 private companies, these schools were
located in 25 states and the District of Columbia, with about one-half located in
Arizona and Michigan."
"In two cities, Denver and San Francisco, students at the privately managed
schools had on average significantly higher reading and mathematics scores than
students at similar traditional public schools. Students at these privately managed
schools also demonstrated greater academic gains over multiple years.
"In Phoenix, there were no significant differences in either reading or math between
students at the two types of schools. Our results are limited to the school and
grade levels examined and may not be indicative of performance at other schools."
The report was submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on
Education and the Workforce.
