Public Subsidies for Private Schooling:

Argentina and Chile have long-standing policies that award public subsidies to private schools. This article compares the academic outcomes of seventh- and eighth-graders in public and pri-vate schools in each country. Three types of private schools are analyzed: Catholic schools that are subsidized by the government, nonreligious schools that are subsidized, and private schools that receive no subsidies. Ultimately, the analyses suggest a mixed portrait of private school effec-tiveness, in which Catholic schools have the most consistent links to achievement. Nonreligious subsidized schools in Chile, often operated by for-profit corporations, produce outcomes no dif-ferent from public schools