A Growing Number of Catholic Schools Are Shutting Down Forever

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I have zero doubt that your local Catholic school gets better standardized test scores than your local public school. This is almost always true. What is also true is that the best predictor of a school’s scores on those tests is their student’s family’s social/economic status (SES). What is also true (haven’t yet to find where this isn’t true) is that the students at your local Catholic school have a higher SES than the students at your local public school. That is: your Catholic school isn’t “better” it is just “richer”.

The comparatively wealthier Catholic schools siphon money from the comparatively poorer public schools.
 
 
I don’t have the time to gather the info (and it wouldn’t convince you anyway), but there are all sorts of studies that show vouchers DO benefit students.

As you are aware, no matter what position one takes on nearly any subject, there are “studies” that support their position.

Deacon Christopher

PS: Some of our Catholic schools are “richer” than public ones, and some are “poorer,” but both types beat the public schools.
 
While there certainly could be a Catholic school that is poorer than it’s local public school, I have yet to find one and have challenged several others to find an example. No one has been able to yet. It could exist, but I bet it is rare.

I have provided several studies that show that vouchers don’t achieve better academic outcomes.

For more money, we get worse results and they disproprionately hurt the poor. You’d think Catholics would be fighting against vouchers, as many, many Christian pastors and churchs are.
 
Diaconia said:
That is not my experience at all - Catholic schools consistently surpass public ones.
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I agree. I did much work when on school board that showed this.

What was interesting is the study about expectations. They took a low performing class and switched in a high expectation teacher and the students responded. They took the low expectation teacher and switched in to the high performing class. The high performing class became low performing.

One of the reasons is that so many Catholic school teachers teach as a vocation. They are not there for pay, they are there to teach.
 
My tax dollars should go to the school of my choice. It’s just that simple.

The catholic schools in my district operate on nearly half the cost per pupil as the public school. Anyone can look up this cost per pupil. It’s readily available information in my state, and probably other states as well.
 
You should look into how much of your tax dollars go toward education and then look and see how much vouchers are worth. Vouchers are you choosing what to do with other’s tax dollars.

Vouchers weaken public education that everyone benifiets from. Vouchers only benfiet those that choose private education (even those that don’t get a voucher).
 
Here, Catholic schools have been in a black crisis for many years.

The left does not take to the streets in favor of workers, to solve unemployment, for families and children, but a demonstration against “gifts to catholic schools” is organized in a jiffy.

Of course, Catholic schools would save the public administration billions, but we clash with pure and obtuse ideology.
 
buffalo said:
What was interesting is the study about expectations. They took a low performing class and switched in a high expectation teacher and the students responded. They took the low expectation teacher and switched in to the high performing class. The high performing class became low performing.

One of the reasons is that so many Catholic school teachers teach as a vocation. They are not there for pay, they are there to teach.
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Nearly ALL teachers are there to teach. Teachers make a pittance when you consider all of the personal time they invest in their jobs. Sending my kids to Catholic school was financially untenable. I have spend 17+ years dealing with public school teachers and programs. This study you mentioned–did it control for how long a teacher has been teaching and under what conditions? A teacher of twenty years in an impoverished public school gets beaten down by adverse circumstances. Yes, there are bad teachers. But Catholic school teachers don’t have to work with a third of their students with IEPs and special needs and adaptations for students of many levels. A public school budget doesn’t come down to just a teacher’s salary or whatever arbitrary worth attributed to a single student for a voucher. Public schools have requirements that private and Catholic schools don’t need to handle.

FWIW, we really wanted to send our kids to our parish Catholic school (K-8th) but we couldn’t afford it for one child, let alone all of them. They just opened a Catholic high school and again we looked into it, but it’s cost prohibitive. Also, my oldest is taking AP classes that participate in a program wherein she will get college credit, something not available in the Catholic school.

Nothing is simple; there are tons of factors involved and there is no simple solution.
 
cloistered said:
Vouchers weaken public education that everyone benifiets from. Vouchers only benfiet those that choose private education (even those that don’t get a voucher).
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Let’s get rid of public ed completely and everyone can pick the private school of their choice.
 
Absolutely I agree that education needs to improve! I have seen those comedy segments! They are hilarious! And, I have never once thought that they represented the majority of the people or that none of those people went to Catholic schools 😉

I have known plenty of people who went to Catholic schools (myself included) who are dumb as a box of rocks (myself included).
 
NevermoreLenore said:
FWIW, we really wanted to send our kids to our parish Catholic school (K-8th) but we couldn’t afford it for one child, let alone all of them.
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Indeed. Tuition is an obstacle to enrollment. Catholic education took on a corporate model rather than a pastoral mission. I think it is wrongheaded.
 
I live in a state that utilizes school choice vouchers. I believe it’s lead to an increase in tuition not directly related to inflation. Catholic high school is nearly twice the amount of the grade schools (depending on whether or not you are a parishioner). We send our 3 youngest to a Catholic grade school and the tuition is $5800 per child. We aren’t parishioners so we don’t get a discount (which only amounts to $100 off for each additional child). When this school opened 4 years ago, tuition was $5500. The high school is roughly $9000 per child which is why our oldest goes to public. The fact is that if the school is taking govt money, then the govt can dictate how the school functions. It’s been ridiculous actually and in retrospect I should have kept them in public school and doubled down on religion at home. The only thing I like about their current school is that it’s small and they do have several strict teachers there who have high standards. The school also has NO lunch program, and requires a ridiculous uniform code which is also expensive. A while back they were actually concerned about enrollment (several families had left) and were thinking about closing but were able to stay open due to some generous donations. They’ve gone through 4 principals. If my kids didn’t have friends there I’d pull them immediately.
 
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The reason so many Catholic schools can’t stay open is twofold.
  1. It’s so expensive in most places that Catholic families simply can’t afford it (even with the scholarships and discounts)
  2. The quality of education is sub par. Catholic schools have always tended to outperform public schools academically, but most Catholics want to send their children to a Catholic school for the Catholic experience. And this is likely not being done at many many many Catholic schools and so parents keep their kids away. Case in point, our parish Catholic school has teachers who openly promote in vitro fertilization (among other things contrary to the Church’s faith and morals). Yet these teachers continue to teach with impunity.
This is a personal gripe of mine, and be forewarned it’s not very charitable, so please have mercy on me lol. Dioceses seems to have no end of financial resources to pay out for sex abuse scandal after sex abuse scandal. Yet these same dioceses don’t have the extra funds to keep Catholic schools open, hire quality teachers, invest in their schools to lower tuition and make Catholic education more accessible? That’s a bunch of crap, to me. But this is only from my outside looking in perspective. I’ve never worked for a Diocese and don’t pretend to know how the finances work behind the scenes. I just wish parishes didn’t have to kick so much money up to the diocese and could keep all these “appeals” within the parish community itself, to better the parish. Who cares if the Archdiocese is rockin’ if your own parish has next to nothing to offer its faithful?
 
Diaconia said:
That is not my experience at all - Catholic schools consistently surpass public ones.
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It definitely is where I’m at, or they are at least even. The socioeconomic background of kids in both schools are pretty even, so the results are as well.
Diaconia said:
Public schools already are far too wasteful with their bloated budgets, and focus on indoctrination rather than learning.
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This is preposterous, at least here in the states.
Diaconia said:
Catholic schools operate on a fraction of the same budget, but consistently produce better results.
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Again, I can’t speak to Canada but here they’re pretty even…especially when the socioeconomic backgrounds are pretty close. In areas where the public schools fall behind, when we remove the test scores of the Alternative Learning Centers the scores become pretty equivalent again.
 
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