Impact of For-Profit and Nonprofit Management on Student Achievement: The Philadelphia Intervention, 2002-2008

Paul E. Peterson and Matthew M. Chingos, Harvard University 2009

 

Using individual student test-score data made available by the School District of

Philadelphia, the researchers estimated the impact of for-profit and nonprofit management on student achievement by tracking the performance of students in math and reading from 2001 to 2008. 30 schools included in the study were under for-profit management and 16 schools included in the study were managed by nonprofits. The researchers compared the performance of the privately managed schools to that of 71 schools under regular school district management whose students performed below the district median. The impact of nonprofit management appears to have been negative. The impact of for-profit management was generally positive, though only the math impacts are statistically significant.

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