Achievement in Public and Private Secondary Education in the Netherlands

Recent research has claimed that American private high schools are moreeffective than public high schools. Two critical aspects of this research are atthe center of this article: a) whether the short-term benefits of privateschools which were found to exist persist over an extended period of time; b)whether these effects can be explained by differences in funding. In theNetherlands public and private education are equally funded. Longitudinaldata on the educational attainment of the 1965-cohort during the whole oftheir secondary education were used to establish whether Dutch Catholic,Protestant and public secondary schools have differential effects on theirpupils' educational achievement.The results of the study demonstrate the presence of a school sector effect inthe Netherlands on the educational attainment of their pupils