ABSTRACT
In international studies of economic performance, evidence shows a strong positive association between students’ achievement on cognitive tests and long-run economic growth across countries (see Hanushek & Woessmann, 2007, 2008, for extensive surveys). At the same time, international evidence also suggests that simply spending more on education is unlikely to improve student performance substantially (see, for example, Gundlach, Woessmann, & Gmelin, 2001; Hanushek, 2003; Woessmann 2002, 2005c; Woessmann & West, 2006). Students in countries with higher spending levels or smaller class sizes do not tend to perform systematically better than students in less well-equipped countries (see Woessmann, 2007a, for a survey).2 Countries diff er considerably in the eff ectiveness with which they transform resources into student achievement. Th is review surveys recent international comparative studies-that is, studies of more than one country at a time-showing that private schools may play an important role in these cross-country diff erences in student achievement.3
