Notes: Privatized Delivery of Instructional Services for Urban Public School Students Placed at Risk

The privatization “revolution” of the last decade of the 20th century has not left public education unchallenged. While much of the recent debate has focused on “school choice” and voucher plans, there has been growing discussion of privatization within public schools. Most studies have noted the lack of evidence of student achievement gains under privatization models. In this research note we evaluate the effectiveness of private delivery of instructional services to public school students by analyzing the impact on student achievement of reading and math instruction delivered by a private company in a large urban public school system on the East Coast. Analyses of score data from the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (Fourth Edition) indicate differential effects of instructional service delivery by this private company, depending on subject matter (reading vs. math), grade level, and student characteristics (especially gender). The impact on student achievement is particularly notable in mathematics, but we found no evidence that reading comprehension achievement is significantly improved by this private remedial reading program in high poverty urban schools. This study underscores the importance of formal evaluation of privatization efforts to ascertain impacts on student achievement, since there has been considerable expansion of privatized delivery of instructional services to urban school districts, using Title I (Chapter I) funds, with little solid evidence of the effectiveness of these programs.