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Catholic Schools and Educating the Whole Child

By Philip V. Robey

A recent study on the impact of Catholic schools in the lives of economically disadvantaged children found that 98 percent of a group of low-income students attending Catholic schools on tuition grants in Los Angeles graduated from high school. What’s more, nearly 98 percent of them went on to pursue some sort of postsecondary education, the same study, by the school of education at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, reported.

Meanwhile, a New York Times article from May, lamenting the closing of Rice High School in New York City, a Catholic school for mostly minority students of modest means, noted that over the past four years, all of the school’s graduates have been accepted to college. This is a remarkable figure when one considers the alternatives, but not so remarkable when considered against all of the nation’s Catholic secondary schools, where 99.1 percent of students graduate from high school and 84.7 percent attend college. Whether in a tough, urban setting, or in wealthy suburbia, Catholic schools continue to contribute to the national landscape via educational successes mixed with the teaching of values.

The loose system of Catholic schools is the largest group of nonpublic schools in the country. Though some Catholic schools have closed or consolidated in economically difficult recent times, others have opened and, with roughly 6,000 Catholic elementary and secondary schools in operation nationwide, Catholic education remains an influential force. When we want to look at education without many of the political, legal, and distracting interferences, we can—and should—examine Catholic schools, which educate more than 2 million students in neighborhoods that range from economically challenged...