Chapter 13: Research on Catholic School Effectiveness

Beginning with the work of Rossi and Greeley in the early 1960s, rigorous empirical research has documented the effectiveness of Catholic schools on a variety of fronts, particularly in the academic and religious domains. Prior to 1980, however, most of these findings were of little interest to secular educators and policymakers. The mounting evidence of the efficacy of Catholic schools, particularly for disadvantaged students, has led to a growing interest in the organization and practices of Catholic schools and has inspired questions about what public education can learn from Catholic schools.

Unfortunately, much more research has been conducted on the effectiveness of Catholic high schools than their elementary counterparts. For that reason, this chapter devotes disproportionate attention to Catholic high school outcomes. The academic success of the Catholic high school is apparent particularly when one views its effectiveness for certain disadvantaged and minority children, whose persistently low achievement levels—especially in urban America—present perhaps the most pressing problem confronting American public education today. For example, the average mathematics test scores for Black and Hispanic public school students in the 12th grade are about the same as for White and Asian public school students in the 8th grade. Consider also that children from singleparent families in public schools are twice as likely to drop out as students from two-parent families; but in Catholic schools, dropout rates for both types of families are about the same, and that rate is nearly non-existent (Manno, 1999).