ABSTRACT
The biggest difference between Catholic and public secondary school students among minorities is found in the upwardly mobile group. Hence the tilt in the direction of a school effect explanation increases. The capacity to educate effectively the children of the noncollege educated seems to exist in Catholic schools regardless of racial or linguistic background, perhaps a holdover from the days when Catholic high schools were the path of upward mobility for ethnic immigrants. Statistically speaking, it is inevitable that when these interaction terms are added to the model, the power of the social-class variables to diminish the difference between Catholic and public school minority students will be eroded. Catholic schools seem less successful in producing high academic scores for young people who are college bound from college-educated families. Two factors seem to determine this phenomenon—size of school and religious order ownership.
