School Choice or Best Systems_ What Improves Education_ - Margaret C. Wang [37]
Alternative schools—charter, magnet, or private—seem to offer opportunities for meaningful political participation greater than even the wealthiest public schools. Student councils typically consist of 20 to 40 officers, regardless of school size, so these generally smaller schools enable a greater percentage of students to hold office. And because alternative schools tend to have a clear mission, their constitutions try to uphold school values—by encouraging the election of moral exemplars, for example.33
Another way to examine the question is to compare the attitudes of college students educated in private and public schools. Wolf, Greene, Kleitz, and Thalhammar34 surveyed 1,212 students in introductory American government courses at the University of Texas-Austin, the University of North Texas, the University of Houston, and Texas Christian University. Their survey results indicate that the privately educated students have substantially higher tolerance scores than do those educated in public high schools.
Schools with the strongest civic climates tend to increase civic participation in later life. Campbell35 analyzed Youth Studies Series data obtained in interviews with high school seniors, their classmates, and parents in 1965 and from the same students interviewed again in 1973 and 1982. Campbell found that “cohesive schools,” including those with a homogeneous political composition, foster higher rates of voting in later adult life.
But are privately educated ethnic minorities more tolerant, particularly those with large fractions of recent immigrants? To answer this question, Greene, Giammo, and Mellow36 analyzed data from the Latino National Political Survey, a national sample of adult Latinos. Those educated predominately in private schools were significantly more likely to be tolerant than were those who had been educated in U.S. public and foreign schools. For example, Latinos who received their education entirely in private schools were willing to tolerate the political activities of their least-liked group substantially more frequently than those who never attended private school (holding all other factors statistically constant). Privately educated Latinos, moreover, were more likely to vote and more likely to join civic organizations.
These appear to be the most rigorous studies available, and they show a consistent pattern favoring private schools’ capacity for developing valued social attitudes. The findings certainly contradict the stereotype of private schools as enclaves of intolerance. Yet, because of parental attitudes and other difficult-to-measure conditions, there is a possibility that private school students might have developed more valued attitudes had they gone to public schools. So, the research is not quite conclusive.
Effects of Private Schools on Racial Integration
Several empirical studies have found that the parents who are the most likely to choose their children’s schools tend to be somewhat more likely to be white and of higher socioeconomic status than nonchoosers. It does not follow, however, that private schools are segregated or would become segregated under a universal school choice program.37 As Greene38 points out, rather than blame parental bigotry, it is reasonable to think that wealthier parents simply can afford to do what the majority of parents, rich and poor, say they would prefer to do if cost were not an obstacle—send their children to private schools. For this reason, students from white and wealthier families are somewhat overrepresented in private schools. In addition, Italians, Irish, Poles, and other groups are most often white and tend to send their children to Catholic schools for religious rather than racial reasons.
Because they are often