Do private schools in Argentina perform better because they are private?

The objective of this study is to analyse the determinants of thequality of education in Argentina and, in particular, to look at what influencea school's ownership structure has. A multilevel regression model and2006 data from the Programme for International Student Assessment(PISA); were used for this purpose. One of the main findings is that thecorrelation between a school's administrative structure (public or private);and its students' scholastic performance fades when the socioeconomicschool environment is taken into consideration.