Fewer Catholic Schools But Not Employees Thereof

That’s right, the number of Catholic schools has gone down but the number of employees of them has remained about the same. “A recent study in Education Next evaluates the shift in the haves and have-nots of private education, highlighting the disturbing trend of private schools enrolling students predominantly from high-income families,” Greg Dolan writes in Education Next. “Authors Richard Murnane and Sean Reardon point to the loss of half of America’s Catholic schools, and their mission to serve low-and-middle-income families, as a huge factor in this trend.”

“While the authors point to two well-known causes of this decline, increased labor costs at Catholic schools and constraints on diocesan finances generally, the fact that as many people work for Catholic schools today as did in 1960, when there were twice as many schools and three times as many students, points to a serious lack of adaptation on the part of Catholic school leaders.”

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