Adjusted PISA results put Spain’s public schools four points ahead in science
The Receipt · Friday, 11 September 2026
Why it matters
This is outcome evidence that the headline school-type gap is substantially associated with who attends each network and how students are concentrated between schools: a raw advantage of more than 20 points becomes a four-point public advantage under comparable socioeconomic conditions. That makes segregation and school composition measurable parts of the education-performance debate, rather than treating unadjusted rankings as evidence that one network is intrinsically more effective.
What happened
In the latest PISA results, students in Spanish private and publicly funded private schools scored 24 points higher in mathematics, 23 in science and 21 in reading than public-school students before adjustment. In science—the competence for which this edition applies the analysis—the private-sector advantage falls to seven points after equalizing students’ individual socioeconomic circumstances, then reverses to a four-point public-school advantage when the social composition of schools is also equalized. The public system still educates a much larger share of vulnerable students, and the result varies by region: Galicia shows a 26-point public advantage after adjustment, while the adjusted result still favors private schools in the Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, the Basque Country and Navarre.
Players & places
- Spain
- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
- European Union