| Ann Jones
Boston College
Differential effectiveness: Catholic and public school fourth graders' performance on NAEP
FINAL REPORT:
This study updates and adds to the literature comparing Catholic and public elementary schools at the national level and serves as a link to comparative studies of high school students. Specifically, the 1992 NAEP mathematics data from fourth graders were analyzed to investigate differential achievement and the relationship between cognitive and non-cognitive constructs for Catholic and public school students. The analysis plan involved running confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses in addition to descriptive statistics. Additionally, a series of regression and path analyses were conducted. The various regression and path analyses were analyzed comparing fourth grade students from similar community and socio-economic settings in order to more closely investigate a possible Catholic school or public school "effect."
This investigation found differences in average achievement scores for the NAEP mathematics assessment for the public and Catholic school groups as a whole as well as sub-groups. Even when control variables were utilized, fourth grade students from the two schools were, on average, performing differently on the NAEP mathematics assessment. Overall, this investigation found that both Catholic and public schools were serving students from average and high family environment levels in a similar manner. While students from less supportive family environments achieved higher scores when they attended a Catholic school. As a result, this finding lends support to school choice programs if they target students from weaker family environments. Also, family environment had a greater effect on achievement for public school students than Catholic school students, lending some evidence towards the existence of a school effect. Additionally, giving teachers greater control over the curriculum appeared to increase achievement for students. Specifically, giving teachers control over selection of instructional materials, course content and course sequencing were seen to have a positive effect on student achievement. Also, regardless of school setting, non-traditional forms of assessment were found to have very little no effect on NAEP achievement scores. These finding lends evidence in favor of school reform movements supporting school level control or "bottom-up" approach to school reform.. Finally, access to school owned computers and calculators had no or very little effect on student achievement.
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