Giving Compass' Take:

• Research suggests that private schools successes are almost entirely the product of environmental influences, and have little to do with the quality of education children received.

• How can we apply this knowledge to make our public schools perform better? What can parents do to help their children regardless of what school they go to?

• Read more about private vs. public schooling. 

Popular depictions of private schools vary in tone, but audiences tend to get a uniform picture of glamorous institutions that kids would be lucky to attend. From the supernatural instruction of the Harry Potter books to the wan posing of Dead Poets Society, there’s always something attractive about the hijinks that unfold on a private school campus.

But the advantages of attending private school are overhyped, according to new research. Once family and socioeconomic circumstances are accounted for, the authors found that private school students realize virtually no special benefits in comparison with those enrolled in traditional public schools.

Published in the journal Educational Researcher, the study was co-authored by Robert Pianta, dean of the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, along with research associate Arya Ansari. Pianta has previously written in favor of public education’s benefits in comparison with private alternatives, arguing that the Trump administration’s “fixation on vouchers” represents an abandonment of the ideal of egalitarian schools.

Read the full article about private schools by Taylor Swaak The 74.