News Release

December 7, 2005

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"Poor Choices" Yield Better Education
Groundbreaking study spotlights education phenomenon in world's poorest areas

WASHINGTON - A great success story is taking place beneath the government and media's radar. Independent private schools in the world's poorest villages and slums are providing students with higher quality education than their public-sector counterparts. A groundbreaking study released today by the Cato Institute documents the reach and quality of low-cost private schools in low-income areas around the developing world.

In "Private Education is Good for the Poor: A Study of Private Schools Serving the Poor in Low-Income Countries," James Tooley, professor of education policy at the University of Newcastle and director of the University's E. G. West Centre, and Pauline Dixon, the Centre's international research coordinator, argue that the private sector is meeting the educational needs of the poor far more effectively than the state.

Based on a two-year study of schools in India, Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya, Tooley and Dixon overturn a host of widely held assumptions: that low-income parents can't or won't make wise educational choices for their children, that private schools cater chiefly to the middle and upper classes, and that private schools for the poor are educationally inadequate. Raw test scores collected by Tooley and Dixon show considerably higher achievement in private than government schools -- an advantage that appears to persist even after controlling for differences in student characteristics between the sectors.

Teacher satisfaction and pupil attendance are higher in private schools for the poor than in government schools, and come at a lower cost. Such a low cost, in fact, that the majority of parents in the poor areas studied sent their children to private schools.

This study has implications for both the U.S. school choice debate and the United Nations Millennium Development goal of education for all. Because so many children are in unrecognized private schools that do not appear in government statistics, Tooley and Dixon argue that achieving universal basic education may be an easier goal to reach than is currently believed - if the present fixation with state provision of schooling can be overcome.