How Much Does School Quality Vary?

Jeffrey Miron

How much does school quality vary? Substantially, according to recent research, and in interesting ways:

Greater access to public schools combined with the rise of private schools has significantly increased school choice in low- and middle-income countries over the past 30 years. Many families can now choose between multiple public and private schools in the same village or neighborhood. However, the extent to which schools vary in quality, and to which parents respond to this variation, is unclear.

Our research examines these questions using data from Pakistan. … Our research has produced several findings.

First, school quality varied substantially, even within villages. … Differences between public and private schools drove some of this variation, but there was also considerable variation within these sectors. …

Second, attending an average-quality private school increased average yearly test score gains by 0.15 SD relative to attending an average-quality public school. …

Third, our findings suggest that parents respond to school quality. This is especially pronounced in private schools, where prices—which reflect parents’ valuations of schools—are strongly correlated with value-added. …

Fourth, households with a high socioeconomic status—measured by parental education and household assets—were more likely to enroll their children in schools with high value-added. …

Finally, even if the government does not respond to the demand for quality, parents can still send their children to high-value-added public schools within villages because all public schools in Pakistan are free and because parents can enroll their children in any (sex-segregated) public school. …

Overall, our findings demonstrate that the educational systems in emerging economies are increasingly characterized by variation in choice and quality, that parents recognize and demand quality, and that the private sector is more responsive to this demand than the public sector.

These results are what school choice advocates would expect. For a fascinating, related account of private schooling in developing countries, check out The Beautiful Tree, by James Tooley.