“The Public School Advantage” Authors to Discuss Their Book at NC State Feb. 21

Authors and researchers Christopher A. Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski will lead a discussion about their book “The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools” at NC State University Wednesday, Feb. 21.

The discussion will begin at 5:30 p.m. and be held in Park Shops 210. There will be a reception before the discussion from 5 to 5:30 p.m.

Christopher A. Lubienski is a professor of education policy at Indiana University, and Sarah Theule Lubienski is professor of mathematics education at Indiana University. Their book “The Public School Advantage” won the Association of American Publishers’ 2014 PROSE Book Award.

NC State’s College of Education, Poole College of Management and College of Humanities and Social Sciences are hosting the public discussion with the scholars.

METRC, the College of Education’s library, will also host two book discussions with NC State students, faculty and staff about “The Public School Advantage” before the public talk on Feb. 12 (3:15-4 p.m.) and Feb. 13 (noon-12:45 p.m.).

About “The Public School Advantage” from publisher The University of Chicago Press: “For decades research showing that students at private schools perform better than students at public ones has been used to promote the benefits of the private sector in education, including vouchers and charter schools—but much of these data are now nearly half a century old. Drawing on two recent, large-scale, and nationally representative databases, the Lubienskis show that any benefit seen in private school performance now is more than explained by demographics. Private schools have higher scores not because they are better institutions but because their students largely come from more privileged backgrounds that offer greater educational support. After correcting for demographics, the Lubienskis go on to show that gains in student achievement at public schools are at least as great and often greater than those at private ones. Even more surprising, they show that the very mechanism that market-based reformers champion—autonomy—may be the crucial factor that prevents private schools from performing better. Alternatively, those practices that these reformers castigate, such as teacher certification and professional reforms of curriculum and instruction, turn out to have a significant effect on school improvement.”