Private schooling is defended as choice and criticised as a mechanism of separation.
Both claims can be tested, and the evidence is more specific than either slogan.
Raw results favour private schools almost everywhere.
Once is controlled for, the difference shrinks sharply and in several studies disappears.
What private schools reliably deliver is a , a network and smaller classes.
The first two are : their value depends on others not having them.
That is why the sector cannot expand its advantage by growing.
Systems differ enormously in how much they allow, and outcomes differ with them.
Countries where the private sector is small and expensive show the widest gaps in .
Countries that fund private schools publicly while forbidding selection show the narrowest.
The variable that matters is therefore selection rather than ownership.
A publicly owned school that selects by address produces the same through the housing market.
are a fee by another name, paid to a previous owner rather than to a school.
Reform that ignores admissions therefore changes the label and not the .
for oversubscribed schools are the bluntest answer and the one most consistently resisted by parents who benefit.