And, indeed, what studies are available seem to confirm this. Not just for private schools - charter schools also tend to underperform the public schools. Gran

And, indeed, what studies are available seem to confirm this. Not just for private schools - charter schools also tend to underperform the public schools. Granted, kids who go to them do tend to get better test scores, go to better universities, have more successful careers, etc. But that's because the whole education industry is a massive exercise in selection bias. The most careful studies I've seen, though, seem to indicate that, all other factors being equal, a typical kid is going to learn more in public school than in private or charter school. This rather mirrors my own experience. I did 2 years of public high school, and 2 years of college prep. I can say that it's absolutely true that my classmates were generally smarter and more studious in the prep school. But the prep school was also easy. It really didn't particularly matter how much effort I put into my homework. As long as I didn't blatantly blow it off, my teachers would dutifully send my parents a report card full of the As and Bs they were paying for. By contrast, it was the public schools where I had the teachers who'd keep ratcheting up their expectations until they could sense that I was actually working to try and get good grades on my papers.