Academic improvement among students attending Philadelphia public schools managed by private operators kept pace, but did not exceed, the achievement gains of students in the rest of the district in the past four years, according to an analysis issued today by the RAND Corporation and Research for Action.

In the first study to examine differences in learning gains at the kindergarten level, William Carbonaro (University of Notre Dame) finds that publicly schooled kindergarteners post the same or greater learning gains than privately schooled kindergarteners.