Thirty years ago, research by James Coleman, Anthony Bryk, Andrew Greeley, and others showed surprisingly that Catholic inner-city schools were enrolling black students and educating them effectively. Only a small minority of American blacks are Catholic, but black parents were sending their children to Catholic schools, despite tuition fees and instruction in a religion the parents did not themselves follow. These parents made this decision primarily because of the schools’ reputation for effective discipline, and in reaction to the observable disorder of their local public schools.
Meanwhile, as Catholics, along with others, left the central cities for suburbia, Catholic schools were losing their local Catholic parish students. As the costs of maintaining these schools rose, dioceses and archdioceses were forced to close many of them, often against fierce local opposition. Catholic schools also lost their traditional teaching force. Fewer young women were taking up the religious life, and the nuns were replaced by much more expensive lay teachers. Catholic churches are territorially fixed, that is, tied to a defined parish; they do not move along with their constituents, as Protestant churches and Jewish synagogues and temples can and do. Emptying out, the parish schools were forced to either close or adapt to a changing local population, which could not provide the same financial support as those departing.
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