CATHOLIC SCHOOLS EARN RESPECT FROM PUBLIC SCHOOL REFORMERS

Did you know that in New York City, Catholic schools educate low-income, disadvantaged students for less than half the money spent in the public school system, while a) suffering fewer dropouts; b) producing better test scores; and c) sending more graduates on to college? (Don't tell me the difference in performance is explained by differences in family background or socio-economic status, either. A recent Rand corporation study demonstrates that the huge gap in results cannot be explained in that manner. In other words, it can be conclusively demonstrated that the parochial schools are taking similar products of poor, single-parent, inner-city households and doing a more effective job for less money).

A major article published in the March 28, 1991 Wall Street Journal told in impressive detail the remarkable story of Catholic education. Good reasons abound why reformers are looking to Catholic education for lessons in how to reinvent the American public school. The Journal article is so important that it's worth repeating large portions of it here:

"... The research on Catholic school student achievement, once a trickle, has now become a torrent. Based on the latest available comparisons, students in Catholic school beat public students by an average of 4.5 percent in mathematics, 4.8 percent in science, and 12.5 percent in reading in the three grade levels of the federal government's National Assessment of Educational Progress test. Catholic school sophomores are four times less likely to drop out than their public school counterparts. Once graduated, they are much more likely ... to go to college.

New research

"... With concern about the U.S. education mess now acute, more people are looking at Catholic schools as models of what good public schools can be. In a report last June that flayed public education, the liberal Brookings Institution backed government funding for Catholic and other private schools.

"Rand Corp., another think tank with usually liberal views, said in a study last August that the schools that deal best with disadvantaged minorities in New York City are Catholic. Many education reformers, meanwhile, have set about creating `new' public schools that bear a striking, if unwitting, resemblance to traditional Catholic schools like St. Clare's (of Scranton, Pa.)

Role model

"... Whether it be uniforms, now used by public schools in Baltimore and elsewhere, or teaching ethics and other social values in the classroom, public schools are even adopting some of what comics and authors love to tweak in Catholic satires.

"`I'm beginning to see the forefront of educational reform take Catholic schools very seriously,' says Valerie Lee, a University of Michigan professor who has studied Catholic education. James Coleman, a University of Chicago sociologist who did much of the pioneering work on Catholic school achievement, adds: `Public schools are desperately trying to find a way to repair themselves, and they are looking at Catholic schools.' ...

Satisfied parent

"John Siejk, a lumber company controller, switched his son Joseph to Scranton's Bishop Hannan High School from public schools three years ago; another son, James, followed a year later. Mr. Siejk, says James was doing well in public schools but was getting little individual attention and few lessons in how to behave as an adult. `My perception of the public schools went down,' he said. `There's an attitude where they let the kids fly through school for 12 years, and there's no one trying to get the parents involved. I wanted a tougher environment.'

"At Bishop Hannan, where James is a sophomore, Mr. Siejk says his son gets three more hours of homework per week than he did as a public school student, wears a tie and slacks every day instead of jeans and sneakers, and is learning self-discipline. Mr. Siejk says the school keeps me on top of what's going on,' with phone calls, mandatory conferences at report card time and deficiency notices in subjects where his sons fall behind.

"Scranton's Catholic schools don't have a lot of money, course options or instructional boldness. They are far from educational utopia, and students passing through them can be just as troubled as in public schools. What they do have is control order in the classroom, well-behaved students and independence to make their own curricular and instructional choices. Also in evidence is something that Chicago's Mr. Coleman calls `social capital,' or an intensive interplay among parents, students and staff that goes well beyond the three Rs.

"... The public schools also offer more courses, more vocational training, more extra-curricular activities ...

"But some researchers say variety may be hobbling public schools, by diluting the intake of what's important. `You get achievement gains from taking academic courses,' says John Witte, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. `Kids are able to escape taking difficult courses in public schools.'

"... [Scranton's public school] bureaucracy and confusion has parents `voting with their feet' and choosing Catholic schools, says Robert Cavanaugh, president of the Scranton Federation of Teachers. `Maybe our brethren in the private schools can pray for us.'"

Wall Street Journal

We hear constantly that the answer to our educational problems is more money. Many such valid arguments can be made, like those offered by Chancellor Haskell Monroe in his response to my invitation to discuss this topic. Others of us will continue to highlight evidence that parochial schools offer impossible-to-ignore lessons in low-cost, back-to-basics, no-nonsense education at the elementary and secondary level.