Are Private Schools Better Than Public Schools? Appraisal for Ireland by Methods for Observational Studies.

ABSTRACT: In observational studies the assignment of units to treatments is not under control. Consequently, the estimation and comparison of treatment effects based on the empirical distribution of the responses can be biased since the units exposed to the various treatments could differ in important unknown pretreatment characteristics, which are related to the response. An important example studied in this article is the question of whether private schools offer better quality of education than public schools. In order to address this question we use data collected in the year 2000 by OECD for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Focusing for illustration on scores in mathematics of 15-years old pupils in Ireland, we find that the raw average score of pupils in private schoo

SUBMITTER: Pfeffermann D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3254111 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature