Public and Private Schools: Do Classroom Processes Vary by School Type?

Using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development dataset, we examined classroom processes (e.g., time spent on language instruction, overall emotional quality of the classroom) and characteristics (e.g., class size) by school type (public or private). Results indicate that classroom processes do not vary significantly by school type. Based on our results, we conjecture that if private schools are, in fact, superior to public schools, it is likely because of some factor(s) not accounted for by our classroom variables.