ABSTRACT
During the 1980s, a spate of research studies and newspaper stories chronicled the unusual effectiveness of Catholic high schools. These accounts claimed that Catholic schools do a better job of engaging students in schooling, have lower dropout rates, and produce higher levels of academic achievement, especially for disadvantaged students (see Coleman, Hoffer and Kilgore, 1982; Greeley, 1982; Coleman and Hoffer, 1987). Moreover, Catholic schools use only very modest fiscal resources to produce these desired outcomes. Although these reports have been subject to rigorous critique and considerable reanalysis, the basic pattern of results has been sustained.
