Debate on Merits Of Public, Private Schools Reignites

By Robert Rothman

A series of public remarks and opinion columns by the president of the American Federation of Teachers has helped reignite a long-running debate about the relative merits of public and private schools in fostering academic achievement.

For the past three months, Albert Shanker has repeatedly hammered away on the issue in an effort to explode what he calls the myth of private-school superiority.

In press conferences, testimony before the Congress, and in his paid newspaper advertisements, Mr. Shanker has cited data from the 1990 National Assessment of Education8] Progress mathematics assessment, which showed that, at the 12th grade, private school students performed only slightly better than...