United States General Accounting Office
October 2003
Do privately managed public schools do a better job than conventional public schools in raising student achievement? Chairman John Boehner of the House education committee asked GAO to investigate this question, and the report is now available, based on a look at six cities where fourteen schools have been managed by six firms since 1998-99. Analysts looked at two years of data (2000-2002) for those schools and compared them with regular public schools in the same cities that were attended by similar youngsters. The results: mixed and inconclusive. In Denver and San Francisco, pupils in privately managed public schools did better. In Cleveland and St. Paul, they did worse, in Detroit and Phoenix about the same. Why is this not too surprising? Because private management per se is no silver bullet. To succeed, the manager must be competent, possessed of a sound education plan and able to implement it well. The terms of engagement also have to be such that the manager has enough running room to make the needed changes. Yes, one could also say that of principals of traditional public schools: pick the right leader and give him/her enough autonomy for successful implementation of a sound education overhaul plan. Such a school's results are apt to improve. The same with out-sourcing. Don't think of private management as a panacea, therefore, but, rather, as another strategy whereby a reform-minded system might be able to effect change in some of its schools by changing their leadership and direction. But please select the right managers - and give them the leeway they need. Perhaps the most interesting factoid in this study is that, for all the furor about private management of public schools (and the dread "profit motive" sneaking into public education), the agency could locate just 400 such schools in 2002-3, "considerably less than 1 percent of all public schools." Judge for yourself whether this innovation has yet had a fair test! You can find the report at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0462.pdf.
