Studying the Influence of Sectarian Private Schools free essay sample

One reason is that even if students in the studies come from disadvantaged backgrounds and do well in sectarian private schools, it is impossible to know if their academic success is a direct result of sectarian private school practices. It could be that other factors, such as parent involvement or student motivation, are higher for students who participate in religious programs or for those whose families scrape together enough money to pay tuition. Some students may also respond better to Catholic or other religious schooling.Another reason the studies are inconclusive is that it is hard to tell whether achievement differences between private and public school students would remain if more students were to attend private schools. According to George Rothsein (1999), another reason for the inconclusive research is that comparing sectarian private and nonsectarian public schools is not as straightforward as it may seem. Within both types of schools, there is a great deal of variatio n. In fact, a case study of eight public and eight private schools found that the type of communities in which schools were located explained variations across schools better than whether they were nonsectarian public or sectarian private. The study found that inner-city private schools were more similar to inner-city public schools than they were to suburban private schools. According to Benita Rose and Rey Gallup (2003), the most recent Gallup Poll on the public’s attitude toward onsectarian public schools, 59 percent of public school parents would send their children to sectarian private schools if given vouchers covering the full tuition. Another survey of Moe (2000), found that the proportion was even higher for low-income parents, 67 percent of who would be interested in sending their children to sectarian private schools if the school can develop students’ attitude towards their religion and their behavior towards their performance.According to Dr. Robert Hellwig (2 005), while her group and the Cardinal Newman Society would generally agree on what values were required for a moral life, they differed on what higher education could or should do to foster those values. Others point out that students of all faiths, at all types of institutions, tend to become more liberal during their college years so the changes may be due more to overall societal influences than to anything the college does or does not do. According to Deranja (2007), it is easy to embrace the idea of non-sectarian spiritual values when we focus on a few key ones: kindness, courage, willingness, self-control, honesty. Educational authorities deem it impossible to teach spiritual principles in public schools because they confuse them with the variety of conflicting forms of religious faiths. But if they concentrate on the universal principles of peace, love, service, tolerance and faith that govern the spiritual life, and devise methods of practically growing such seeds in the fertile soil of the child’s mind, then the imaginary difficulty is dissolved.Related Studies As concluded by Zada and Sander (2006) in the study â€Å"Private school choice: The effects of religion and religiosity†, that this study lend to show that both religion and religiosity have important economic effects including effects on education and students’ behavior. They are relevant to research in private schooling because most private schools in United States have a religious orientation. Parents send their children to them in part to help preserve a religious identity and instill religious values and traditions.Coleman, Kilgore, and Hoffer (1981) cited that there has been substantial interest in whether the positive effects of private elementary schooling are a result of causation or selection. Particular attention has been given to the effects of Catholic schools because they have accounted for the largest share of the private school sector. Altonji, Elder and Taber (2005) came up with the comparative study which attempted to determine whether there is a significant relationship between the two schools; sectarian and nonsectarian schools and their students’ behavior, religiosity and performance.The schools have large positive effects on the probability of graduating from high school, especially for minorities, although Catholic schools do not seem to increase test scores. This study tries to control for the possibility of positive selection into Catholic schools, by first estimating the probability of attending a Catholic School and then using the predicted probability of Catholic Schools attendance to estimate treatment effect of Catholic schools on student achievements. However, they fail to control for religiosity in the first stage selection equation.In this ca se, if students in Catholic schools are relatively more religious than students in public schools and religiosity find are likely to be biased upward. Thus, it is important to consider how religiosity affects school choice. Justman (2003) and his group proved that these schools especially the sectarian schools has a big effects to one student’s religiosity. According to them, the changes occur on students and their schools’ religious practice is one of the factors that can affect their religious belief as well as their behavior. Even the status of their parents, attitude, and study habits are also major factors.