Catholic Enrollment Drops in Chicago

Student-enrollment figures for this school year show that most of the students affected by closings of Roman Catholic schools by the Archdiocese of Chicago at the end of the 2004-05 school year didn’t transfer to other Catholic schools, as archdiocesan officials had hoped they would.

Catholic schools in the archdiocese experienced a drop in enrollment of 4,800 students between last school year and this one. Last spring, the archdiocese announced that 4,200 students would be affected by the closing of 23 schools at the end of the school year. ( "Catholic Schools’ Mission to Serve Needy Children Jeopardized by Closings," March 9, 2005.)

Ultimately, several of the 23 schools on the closure list raised enough money to remain financially viable for at least one more school year, so the archdiocese closed only 18 of...