Catholic Schools Help Poor Kids

Maureen Hallinan and Warren Kubitschek*, both affiliated with the Center for Research on Educational Opportunity at the University of Notre Dame, recently addressed the thorny issue of gaps in student achievement.  Data were drawn from a longitudinal study of students from public and Catholic elementary schools in and around Chicago.  Via a powerful statistical technique known as hierarchical linear modeling, these researchers examined student-level characteristics such as race, gender, and poverty, as well as school-level variables including school sector and school poverty.  Some article highlights:

• The article provides a concise yet comprehensive summary of the research literature on the relationship among school sector, school poverty, and student achievement.
• Catholic school students had considerably higher mean test scores in math and reading than public school students in the same grade.
• When comparing gains in achievement, however, public school students made larger gains in 6^th and 8^th grade reading and 8^th grade math than Catholic school students.
• Poverty in public schools was associated with lower mean test score gains, whereas in Catholic schools, poverty and achievement gains were not linked.
• Given the mixed pattern of findings throughout the analyses, Hallinan and Kubitschek concluded that “no compelling evidence of a Catholic or public school advantage was found” (p. 166).
• The authors carefully illustrated the complexity and challenge of studying the student achievement gap, noting that every gap “varies in size by grade, subject, and sector” (p. 159).

*Note: Warren Kubitschek, colleague and friend of many, passed away on April 3, 2011. Please see http://creo.nd.edu/news/19271-warren-kubitschek-in-memoriam/

Hallinan, M. T., & Kubitschek, W. N. (2010). School sector, school poverty, and the Catholic school advantage. Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice, 14(2), 143-172.

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