Private schools: Who benefits? PISA 7 in FOCUS

In fact, PISA has found that when public schools are given similar levels of autonomy as private schools, and when public schools attract a similar student population as private schools,the private school advantage is no longer apparent in 12 of the 16 OECD countries that showed this advantage.

So when parents choose a private school over a public school for their child, they are selecting the greater probability that their child will attend classes with peers of similar or higher socio-economic status, that the resources devoted to those classes, in the form of teachers and materials, will be of higher quality, and that those classes will be orderly and even inspiring.

PISA shows, however, that public schools with comparable student populations offer the same advantages, even if the average public school, with a more diverse student body, generally does not.