Private schools show same results as public schools

Birth weight, the amount of time a mother spends with her child, and the education level of both parents will have more impact on a child than whether they attend a private or public school. Those are the findings of a study co-authored by University of Queensland Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences duo Professor Luke Connelly and Dr Hong Son Nghiem. The research, involving four waves of Australian primary school-aged children born since March 1999, supports similar studies in the United States and United Kingdom. "Our results show that sending children to Catholic or other independent schools has no significant effect," Professor Connelly said. "Any differences we see in test results are not due to the school type. "Rather, they reflect the differences between households and students that already exist in society. "The work adds to a growing literature from three different continents that the returns from attending independent primary schools are no different from those of attending public school." The research - Does school type affect cognitive and non-cognitive development in children? - tracked more than 4000 Australian primary school children between Years three and five.