Real Hope in Newman Guide Education, Amid Catholic School Decline
For America’s Catholic schools, “less bad” is not good.
There’s some reason to be hopeful about this year’s slower rate of decline: a half-point drop in students since last year, according to the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA). A few states with school choice programs actually saw increases, including Florida, Indiana, and Ohio.
But beware the hype! It’s understandable that the NCEA, representing its Catholic school membership, tries to present its annual data in the best possible light. It’s less explicable that reporters and pundits—especially in the Catholic media—keep parroting the NCEA’s talking points without examining the data closely.
For the last few years, The Cardinal Newman Society has advocated a more sober assessment of the numbers. Last year, the 60th anniversary of U.S. Catholic schools’ peak enrollment, we lamented the tragic loss of more than 70 percent of students since 1965—a loss that would surely recommend a fire sale at any normal business, but Catholic educators should be devoted to forming even the smallest remnant of willing students.
And while enrollment is important, the muddled integrity of Catholic schools deserves even more attention—even if we lose non-Catholic students and schools that show minimal commitment to their Catholic mission. The Cardinal Newman Society has persistently urged and helped Catholic educators to restore the fundamentals of Catholic education, which are sorely lacking in many Catholic schools.
Such integrity has its reward! Newman Guide Recommended schools and colleges have demonstrated that faithful Catholic formation, which embraces the truth of Christ across every activity and the Church’s teaching in every classroom, is what attracts Catholic families. They are the core constituency of Catholic schools. It was for Catholic families that St. John Neumann and Archbishop John Hughes built up parochial schools, and today the dangers of public education are far worse than in the 19th century.
Another year of decline
After Catholic school enrollment tumbled 6.5 percent in 2020-2021—the worst year of the Covid epidemic—it recovered partly the next two years, with increases of 3.8 percent and 0.5 percent. The NCEA touted the first years of growth since 2000 and suggested that this might signal a bright future for Catholic education. Media headlines embellished the prediction, heralding a great recovery.
We thought such predictions were premature and foolish, and we said so. Sure enough, we’re now in our third straight year of decline, and Catholic school enrollment today is far below what it was before Covid. Over the last decade, enrollment has dropped 12.6 percent.
Certainly, it’s good news that the slide is slower than most years since the turn of the millennium. Before Covid, the rate of decline was typically 2-3 percent.
It’s also good news that some states are showing recovery, thanks to very generous school choice programs. Florida’s Catholic school enrollment climbed 12 percent over the last decade.
Still, there’s something about the data in school choice states that is concerning. We’ve been told for decades that the primary reason for Catholic school decline is cost, predicated by the loss of teaching nuns in the 1960s and 1970s. But where are the throngs of Catholic families applying to Catholic schools in states with generous school choice programs? The best we’ve seen is Florida’s 12 percent increase over 10 years—which is hardly evidence of a flood of Catholic applicants escaping secular and immoral public schools.
Toward authentic renewal
Instead, we suspect the renewal of Catholic mission in many individual schools and dioceses is at least as important—and perhaps even more impactful—on enrollment than the availability of school choice aid. The Church has been devastated in so many ways since the 1960s, and most Catholic families and their pastors seem quite content with the disastrous placement of Catholic children in public schools. But where there are faithful Catholic families, they want schools that are uncompromisingly faithful and devoted to forming saints for God.
Which bring us to one final statistic from the NCEA: today only 72 percent of students on Catholic schools are Catholic, and their numbers are shrinking. It’s great when non-Catholics choose faithful Catholic education. But the reality is many Catholic schools, especially inner-city schools, are content to compromise their Catholic mission to attract more non-Catholic students.
That’s exactly the wrong way to renew Catholic education. Our hope is in the faithful Catholic schools, homeschool programs (entirely ignored by NCEA studies), colleges, and graduate programs recommended in The Newman Guide.
May God continue to bless them and the authentic renewal of faithful Catholic education.