Education Myths

Published in
1/28/2006

In his newly published book, "Education Myths", Jay Greene takes on the often heard argument that "charter" or private schools just take the best students, so that leaves public schools with the more difficult students -'" behaviorally and academically. However the evidence suggests that academic achievement of students in public schools actually improves when those schools are faced with greater choice and competition from private or charter schools.

Clive Belfield and Henry Levin at Columbia University's Teachers College conducted a systematic examination of the evidence and after reviewing more than 200 analyses they conclude that "a sizable majority of these studies report beneficial effects of competition across all outcomes, with many reporting statistically significant correlations. -' The above evidence shows reasonably consistent evidence of a link between competition (choice) and education quality. Increased competition and higher educational quality are positively correlated."

This article appeared on ABCNews.com on January 28th, 2006.

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