Catholic School Education Best for Urban Minorities
It is clear from the New York Times review of Diane Ravitch’s book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System" that urban minorities fare much better in Catholic schools than they do in public schools. Part of her evidence comes from sponsoring two students at Bishop Loughlin.
Read highlights of the review below or the full review by Samuel G. Freedman at the Times website.
… Ms. Ravitch and her book offer evidence of how some
public-education scholars and reformers have been learning from what
Catholic education is doing right. “If you’re serious about
education reform, you have to pay attention to what Catholic schools are
doing,” said Joseph P. Viteritti, a professor of public policy at
Hunter College who has edited four books with Ms. Ravitch. “The fact
of the matter is that they’ve been educating urban kids better than
they’re being educated elsewhere." Her interest was initially
piqued by the work of James S. Coleman, a sociologist of education… His research
into various types of high schools — tens of thousands of students’
records — convinced him that the same kind of poor, inner-city
black student performed markedly better in a Catholic school than
in a public one. At a personal level, Ms. Ravitch paid
tuition for two students at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in
Brooklyn under the Student Sponsor Partners program. “Where
charter schools are expanding, Catholic schools are dying,” Ms. Ravitch
said. “But charter schools can’t do the same things. The Catholic
schools have a well-established record of being effective, and they’re
being replaced by schools that have no track record.”
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