[tolbiny]

Phil,
Just to clarify my position since there isn't a lot of consistency between my posts. Their methodology doesn't appear overtly flawed for measuring the differences between math and reading scores and I am not at all able to comment intelligently on their attempts to normalize differing populations (despite my first post).
However this study does not show that Public and private education is close to equal, it simply shows that in two aspects they are close to equal. There are reasons, in my view, to believe that the tests they gave are specifically in areas that public education should do the best relative to private, and that this study also doesn't mention once about educational value per dollar spent which is another thread entirely I would guess.