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Parent participation in school management has been promoted as a strategy for holding schools accountable for education quality and outcomes. However, the evidence has proven inconclusive and limited in explaining mechanisms to affect student achievement. By using public school student data derived from the Programme for International Student Assessment 2015, this study examines how 1) participation of a student’s own parents in school management, which would affect their learning support at home and 2) participation of a group of parents, which would influence school decisions and thus affect the learning environment at school, are associated with student achievement in Croatia, Georgia, Portugal, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Korea, Hong Kong, and Macao. I found no evidence that parent participation in school management contributed to improving student achievement. Instead, depending on the country, a negative association is derived from either individual-level or school-level parent participation. The associations are not moderated by parents’ socioeconomic status but by school’s openness to parental engagement in some of the countries, indicating that what matters might not be participation per se but the degree of engagement. The findings underscore the importance of understanding mechanisms and conditions in which parent participation affects student learning in context to design effective participatory school governance.

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Governments and development partners encourage public school authorities to mobilize private funds from diverse non-state stakeholders as a means to expand funding sources to provide quality education for all. While financing public schools with private funds is expected to promote the efficient use of resources due to increased accountability, it raises concerns about financial equity. Using public school panel data from Learning and Educational Achievements in Punjab Schools (LEAPS) in Pakistan, this study examines how private funds mobilized from different stakeholders are associated with efficiency in educating students at a given achievement level and equity in school finance. School fixed effects analyses show that schools relying on education fees or local community contributions were more likely to reduce inefficient capital expenditure. In girls’ schools, financial dependency on private donors is also associated with a reduction in capital expenditure. However, the results suggest that a heavy reliance on education fees and private donors makes schools less efficient. I find no evidence that mobilizing private-fund revenue widened financial inequity. The findings demonstrate the importance of understanding the differential effects of private-fund revenue to develop effective multi-stakeholder financing systems that improve student achievement in a cost-effective manner and ensure financial equity.