Closing the private school enrollment gap: Are education vouchers enough?

The potential of education vouchers to equalize private school enrollment rates among ethnic groups assumes that income primarily contributes to the lack of diversity in private schools. In his study, “Explaining Ethnic, Racial, and Immigrant Differences in Private School Attendance”, Robert Fairlie finds that differences in parental education and income account for over 70 percent of the gap in private school attendance rates between white natives and other groups. Given the substantial role of parental education, vouchers alone are less likely to effectively reduce the observed gaps in private school attendance. Especially for immigrant children, diversifying private schools necessitates other public policy interventions, such as mandating special education services, coupled with providing financial assistance.

The students evaluated throughout Fairlie’s research are between ages five and 20 and are enrolled in private primary or secondary schools across 132 cities. This sample population accounts for 69 percent of all native-born schoolchildren in the United States in 1990 and 93 percent of all immigrant schoolchildren in 1990. To examine the variation of private school attendance across and within ethnic, racial, and immigrant groups, Fairlie compared private primary and secondary school attendance rates among native (non-Hispanic) and immigrant (non-Hispanic) whites, native and immigrant blacks, native and immigrant Hispanics, and native and immigrant Asians.

Using metadata from the 1990 census, Fairlie discovers that private schools are highly populated by white natives and immigrants, and Asian natives. Contrarily, black natives and immigrants, Hispanic natives and immigrants, and Asian immigrants attend private schools at low rates. Moreover, native schoolchildren are 56 percent more likely to attend a private primary school than immigrant schoolchildren, and 63 percent more likely to attend a private secondary school. Factoring in immigration status, Fairlie’s research reveals that white and black immigrants are more likely to attend private schools than their native counterparts. Contrarily, Hispanic and Asian natives are more likely to attend private school than their immigrant counterparts.

Income and parental education explain more than 50 percent of the gap in private school attendance rates between native whites and native blacks (in primary and secondary schools) and 75 percent of the attendance gap at the secondary school level between native whites and immigrant blacks. For native and immigrant Hispanics, differences in parental education, relative to that of whites, contribute more to the attendance gap than income. Finally, Asian natives have higher rates of attendance at private schools than white natives—50 percent of this gap is attributed to the difference in parental education.

Unlike white and Asian natives, black and Hispanic natives have low levels of parental education. Among immigrants, Asians have the highest level of parental education. According to Fairlie’s research, having two college educated parents, relative to two high school graduate parents, increases the probability of attending private school by 9.25 and 9.63 percentage points for primary and secondary students, respectively. As evidenced by the discrepancy in Asian immigrants’ high level of parental education and low private school attendance rate, education alone does not explain the gap.

Income also plays a significant role in determining the likelihood of attending private schools. In assessing the degree to which income directly affects private school attendance, Fairlie finds that an additional $1000 per-person income increases private school attendance rates by 0.3 percentage points among primary school students and 0.2 percentage points among secondary school students.

While it may be troublesome to account for varying levels of parental education in education reform, Fairlie’s findings also provide insight into the low attendance rates of native and immigrant Hispanics, and immigrant Asians in primary and secondary private schools. In addition to a lack of financial resources, these groups have demands for special educational services, such as bilingual education and ESL programs. Therefore, diversifying the student composition across private schools might require curriculum and program offering revision.

Article Source: “Explaining Ethnic, Racial, and Immigrant Differences in Private School Attendance”, Working Paper Series, 2014, Journal of Urban Economics

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