Is "The Private School Effect" Really a Myth?

Many families across America are making the decision to send their children to the best possible private school in order to ensure they will have success in college. This idea that private schools are more suited to teach students then standard public schools has become known as "The Private School Effect". However, many people are now beginning to question the validity of this statement. Does going to a private school really impact the performance of the students? According to Jeffery Aaron Snyder it doesn't. Although he admits that many private schools have and overall better test average then public schools, Snyder wasn't convinced that this only had to do with the type of school itself. Snyder speaks about the book The Public School Advantage written by Christopher and Sarah Lubienski, which compares the math scores of public and private school students. Looking at the two averages of public and private schools test scores on the NAEP (National Assessment of Education Progress) you would assume that private schools do in fact have an advantage over public schools. The Lubienski's looked into the scores a little deeper by basing the comparison of the test scores on the location of the schools and found that public and private schools that were working with students of similar district regions had collectively equal scores.

There are many ideas that could be contributing to private school scoring better then public schools. The location of the school and student homes maybe the factor that impacts test scores the most. The former president of Center on Education Policy, Jack Jennings, states, "It appears that private schools simply have higher percentages of students who would perform well in any environment based on their previous performance and background." A student coming from a higher socioeconomic status is more likely to perform well in school because they have more resources available for them to be successful.

Another factor contributing to the "private school effect" theory is that private schools are highly competitive and have the capability to control which students attend their schools. As a result the majority of private school students are from financially stable families of higher socioeconomic background. This causes the average test scores of private schools to be higher than perhaps a public school where all students are accepted.

Although it's true that private schools do score better of tests then public schools, "private school effect" seems to be a myth. There are too many important factors such as district regions and private schools ability to control student entrance that impact why a student from a private school would score better than a public school student.

                                                                                            ~Ally
Websites used:
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1670063,00.html
https://bostonreview.net/us/snyder-public-private-charter-schools-demographics-incentives-markets

Homework Help?

Homework. The source of all evil to the average high school student.
This school year there has been lots of controversy whether homework helps students succeed in class or if it just causes unnecessary stress. As a high school student myself I took particular interest in this topic and decided to look at it in more detail.

In recent years many claims have been made that homework puts students under stress that is unnecessary. It has also become noticed that some of the countries with the highest test scores in the world don't give homework to their students.

Harris M. Cooper, a professor at Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University, studied how homework impacts a high school student and spoke about the results of his research. According to Cooper, there are many variables that must be tested while investigating this topic such as the number of subject a student has, the level of placement the student is in and what extracurricular activities a student participates in. Because of this the experiment as a whole remains inconclusive. However various trends have been noticed so far.  Cooper says that according to his research a students success in school does actually have a lot to do with the amount of time a student spends studying at home. On average, the more time a student spends studying at home, the better he or she will preform in the classroom. This then brings up the question: how much homework is enough? Most districts policies say that students should have a half hour of homework for each class, with the exception of AP students who should have a little more. According Cooper, 1.5-2.5 hours of homework per night for a typical high school student is the most effective for helping students be successful; any more then that is not helping the student improve.

For now its safe to say that when its not given in excessive amounts, homework every night actually does benefit a students academic performance.
                                                                                                         ~Ally

Websites used:
http://www.sedl.org/pubs/sedl-letter/v20n02/homework.html
http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/homework-is-too-much/
http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Instruction/What-research-says-about-the-value-of-homework-At-a-glance