I have heard from many leaders in business and finance that when a graduate from Catholic elementary and secondary schools applies for an entry-level position in their companies, the employer can be confident that the applicant will have the necessary skills to do the job. Joseph Viteritti, a professor of public policy at Hunter College in New York who specializes in education policy, recently said, "If you're serious about education reform, you have to pay attention to what Catholic schools are doing. The fact of the matter is that they've been educating urban kids better than they're being educated elsewhere."

The evidence is not just anecdotal. Researchers like Helen Marks (in her 2009 essay "Perspectives on Catholic Schools" in Mark Berends's "Handbook of Research on School Choice") have found that students learning in a Catholic school, in an environment replete with moral values and the practice of faith, produce test scores and achievements that reliably outstrip their public-school counterparts.

This is why, to the consternation of our critics, we won't back away from insisting that faith formation be part of our curriculum, even for non-Catholic students.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Education • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

1. Vatican Watcher wrote: There was a pretty good article in The New Oxford Review awhile ago.  It talked about Catholic schools and why they are facing such major problems and how they are evolving from institutions dedicated teaching the poor to fancy middle class private schools with a smattering of charity cases on scholarships provided by rich donars. Populations may be relocating, teaching sisters may be in short supply, driving up employment costs, but the article made the excellent point that regardless of what is tried to remedy the situation, the fact remains that Catholics have birth controlled themselves to the point where these hard choices are having to be made. February 1, 6:28 pm | [comment link]

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