The Catholic School Advantage
It is clear that, on average, students in Catholic schools perform
better academically than those in public schools. The study done in 1982
by Coleman and his colleagues of more than 50,000 public high school and
more than 5,500 Catholic high school students found that "[t]he Catholic
schools are about half a standard deviation above the public schools in
vocabulary (using the U.S. total standard deviation); a little less than
half above in reading, mathematics, and writing (English composition);
and about a third above in civics and science."3
Similarly, 1985-86 results of the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP) in reading compared 2,000 Catholic school students with
30,000 public school students in grades 3, 7, and 11 and found Catholic
school students scored significantly higher at all grade
levels.4 In the same year, NAEP results in math and science,
with a sample size about half as large, confirmed a consistent and
statistically significant Catholic school advantage. 5
Minority students attending Catholic schools also score higher on
achievement tests than do minority students in public schools. Another
1982 study using national data found that black students in Catholic
schools scored at least a full standard deviation higher than their
public school peers in vocabulary, writing, civics, and reading, and
between 0.3 and 0.4 standard deviation units higher in mathematics and
science. (An increase of one standard deviation over the national mean
is roughly equivalent to a jump from the 50th percentile to the 83rd
percentile.) Hispanic students also showed higher achievement in
Catholic schools.6 Differences between achievement scores for
white and minority students are also smaller in Catholic schools than in
public schools.6
These data are from the High School and Beyond database, but similar
findings are evident in the National Assessment of Educational Progress
test data from 1985-86 and the Coleman study.3-5In summary,
Catholic school students in general and, specifically, minority students
attending Catholic schools perform better on standardized tests than do
their peers in public school. However, Catholic school students are a
selected group, not equivalent to public school students. Two studies
attempting to create comparable control groups found a continued
Catholic school advantage, but these findings should not be considered
definitive because of the inability to control for many potentially
important variables and because, in some instances, results were
reported without analysis of their statistical significance.Visit the Future of
the Children website for the complete pdf version of this
report.
Footnotes
1 Another 34% attended other religious
schools, and 15% attended nonsectarian schools. U.S. Department of
Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Digest of education
statistics, 1996. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996,
p. 70.
2 Convey, J. Catholic schools make a
difference: Twenty-five years of research. Washington, DC: National
Catholic Educational Association, 1992.
3 Coleman, J.S., Hoffer, T., and Kilgore, S.
High school achievement: Public, Catholic, and private schools compared.
New York: Basic Books, 1982, p. 127.
4 Marks, H.M., and Lee, V.E. National
Assessment of Educational Progress proficiency in reading 1985-1986:
Catholic and public schools compared. Washington, DC: National Catholic
Educational Association, 1989.
5 Lee, V.E., and Stewart, C. National
Assessment of Educational Progress proficiency in mathematics and
science 1985-1986: Catholic and public schools compared. Washington, DC:
National Catholic Educational Association, 1989.
6 Greeley, A.M. Catholic high schools and
minority students. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books,
1982.
