This article is especially poignant for Eric Scheske, who attended his sixth-grade son's "graduation" last night from Catholic parochial school. For over fifty years, the school offered K-8 education, but it had to drop grades 7 and 8 due to lack of students and funding. Link. Excerpt:
[T]here is still a widespread belief that government schools promote the common good in a way independent private schools never could.
Is that belief justified? Scores of researchers have compared the social characteristics and effects of public and private schooling. They have found little evidence of any public-sector advantage. On the contrary, private schools almost always demonstrate comparable or superior contributions to political tolerance, civic knowledge and civic engagement. One group of private schools stands out as particularly effective in this regard: those run by the Catholic Church.
The late great sociologist James Coleman repeatedly found that when he compared Catholic schools to their public-sector counterparts, they were more effective in educating low-income and minority students, engendered greater parental participation, and sent far more of their graduates to college – all after controlling for differences in the characteristics of public and private school families.
