PRIVATE SCHOOL ENROLLMENT AND PUBLIC-SCHOOL PERFORMANCE - ASSESSING THE EFFECTS OF COMPETITION UPON PUBLIC-SCHOOL STUDENT-ACHIEVEMENT IN WASHINGTON-STATE

Advocates of education privatization often take two general approaches to denigrating commonplace public school monopoly service provision a ssignments. One general argument is that public school administrators are self-interested rent-seekers, which is evidenced by the ever-enlar ging bureaucracies they operate. This argument has been roundly critic ized by Kevin Smith and Kenneth Meier (1994, 1995) in two methodologic ally rigorous analyses. The second general argument is grounded in the assumption that public school student performance will improve if pub lic schools are forced to compete for enrollment with private school a lternatives. The evidence regarding this claim of privatization advoca tes has been contested in a systematic study of North Carolina school districts, but requires further analysis to determine if these finding s can be generalized to school districts writ large. Such a replicatio n study is presented here, with findings reported that are in agreemen t with those of Newmark (1995).