Are Private Schools More Effective than Public Schools?: Experience from a Natural Experiment in Korea

Utilizing the fact that student allocation to private or public high schools in Korea is done randomly within a given school district, this study conducted a natural experiment, free from selection bias, to analyze whether private schools are more effective than public schools in terms of enhancing students’academic performance. After analyzing a model that controls the fixed effects of school districts, it was found that private schools do not have a statistically significant impact compared to public schools with respect to improving academic records. Nevertheless, the private school effect has shown a positive value equivalent to 0.13 standard deviation for female students at the highest academic levels.