Per Christum

Seven new Cristo Rey schools opening this fall; brings total to 19
By Carol Zimmermann
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — While many Catholic schools in the nation’s inner cities have been struggling to stay open due to declining enrollments and skyrocketing expenses, innovative efforts to revive Catholic high schools in these same neighborhoods are quietly gaining momentum.

Just this fall, seven new Cristo Rey schools are opening, bringing the national total to 19. The Catholic schools, which mean “Christ the King” in Spanish, serve low-income high school students from Los Angeles to New York.

They model Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, which opened in 1996 in a predominantly Hispanic Chicago neighborhood. Before it opened, the school’s president, Jesuit Father John Foley, sought the advice of a management consultant on ways to make the school affordable.

Acting on this advice, school officials developed a work-study program where students could offset tuition costs and gain practical business experience by working entry-level jobs five days a month and attending school for extended days and school year.

The Chicago school opened with 80 sophomores and juniors in an old gym; today it has more than 525 students in two buildings. Five years after it opened, the Cristo Rey Network formed to replicate the Chicago school across the country.

To belong to the network, schools have to meet tough standards, including serving “only economically disadvantaged students” and making no exceptions to the work-study requirement. They also must be explicitly Catholic in mission and have church approval. Although initial Cristo Rey schools were sponsored by Jesuits, at least 13 religious orders have now committed to sponsoring them, providing staff members and financial support.

Salesian Father Steve Shafran, president of the new Don Bosco Cristo Rey School in suburban Washington, said a key part of the Cristo Rey schools is their affordability. “We know Catholic education works,” he said, based on “hundreds of years of experience.” The problem is that the cost of a Catholic education has “not made it accessible to some segments of the population.”

Ninety-six percent of Cristo Rey graduates enrolled in a two- or four-year college program last year and the network’s four-year dropout rate for the 2006 class was 2.6 percent compared to 30 percent nationwide.

Almost every year since the network was formed another school has been added. This year the seven new schools are in Baltimore; Birmingham, Ala.; Indianapolis; Minneapolis; Omaha, Neb.; Washington; and Newark, N.J. Read all…

Urban minorities benefit most from Catholic schools
Study shows greater earning power, more college degrees

African-American and Hispanic students in urban areas benefit most from attending Catholic schools, achieving higher graduation rates from high school and college than students from similar backgrounds who attend public schools, according to new research by Derek Neal, Associate Professor in Economics. Neal’s findings are reported in “The Effects of Catholic Secondary School on Educational Achievement,” published in the March issue of the Journal of Labor Economics.

Compared with their public-school counterparts, more than twice as many minority Catholic-school graduates from urban areas finish college: 27 percent of the Catholic-school graduates finish college, while only 11 percent of minority public-school graduates receive their degrees. And while 62 percent of minority students at urban public high schools graduate, 88 percent of students from the same background complete high school when enrolled in Catholic schools, according to the study. Read all…

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