Teacher Practical Guidance:

Religious Schools

Category: External

Rank Order

Effect Size

0.23

Achievement Gain %

How-To Strategies

BENEFITS

Higher test scores: A review of 90 studies by William Jeynes found that students at religious schools scored about 0.29 standard deviations higher than students at traditional public schools. That works out to about 11 percentile points, even after adjusting for family income and background. Charter school students scored about the same as public school students.capenetwork

Smaller achievement gaps and better behavior: The same review found smaller gaps by race and income, and fewer behavior problems. capenetwork

Better college results: Students from Catholic high schools had higher college GPAs, were more likely to finish college, and were more likely to earn STEM degrees. This held for low-income, non-white, urban and lower-achieving students too. digitalcommons.lmu

More voting as adults: One study estimated that attending a Catholic school raised adult voter turnout by 7.6 to 11.8 percentage points.circle.tufts

Civic engagement: A review of 57 studies found private school students did modestly better on political tolerance, civic knowledge and volunteering, with religious private schools showing a larger effect Graduates also give and volunteer more.

Health in young adulthood: Compared with public school students, religious school students were later more likely to register to vote and had a lower risk of being overweight. journals.plos

Clear values and a strong community: Religious schools set clear expectations for behavior and character. That helps build responsibility and a culture of caring for each other. drt.cmc

Limits of the Research

Families choose these schools, so it’s hard to separate the school’s effect from the family’s. A recent review found the evidence on civic outcomes is mixed and unclear about cause and effect. Many studies show no big difference between religious and non-religious schools.tandfonline

Effects on religious practice fade. Graduates attend religious services more two years after high school, but by eight years the effect is weaker and less consistent. csrs.nd

Some sources take a side. CAPE is a private school group and Sutherland Institute is a policy think tank, so peer-reviewed studies are the stronger evidence.

CHALLENGES

Falling enrollment and closures: In the last 50 years, Catholic schools have lost nearly 5,800 schools and more than 3 million students. During the pandemic, enrollment fell 6.4%, the biggest one-year drop in at least five decades, and more than 200 schools closed or merged. nationalaffairs+2

Money problems: Most of their funding comes from tuition, parish support and fundraising, with very little from the government. When enrollment drops, deficits grow fast. stmstc

Cost for families: Average tuition is over $5,000 for grades K–8 and over $10,000 for high school, which is out of reach for many families.edweek

Low teacher pay: Catholic elementary teachers in Massachusetts earn about 55% of what public school teachers make. Local experts call this pay gap the biggest threat to the schools’ survival. Many teachers leave for public schools after a few years. bostonmagazine

Hiring for mission: As fewer people practice a religion, it’s harder to find teachers who share the school’s mission. knottfoundation

Less support for students with disabilities: Private schools don’t have to follow IDEA, the federal special education law. In some states, families who take a voucher give up rights such as an IEP and a free appropriate public education. docs.house

Fewer health and support staff: Religious schools are often left out of state programs for mental health staff, nurses and teacher recruitment.nysenate

LGBTQ+ students: GLSEN, an LGBTQ+ student advocacy group, finds that LGBTQ+ students at private religious schools face more discrimination than at any other type of school. Religious schools are exempt from Title IX when it conflicts with their beliefs.wisconsinwatch

Arguments over vouchers: Critics object to public voucher money going to schools that turn away students based on religion, disability or LGBTQ+ status. A 2022 Supreme Court ruling said states can’t exclude religious schools from voucher programs. Maine is now in a legal fight over whether those schools must follow its anti-discrimination rules. texasobserver

Hard to grow: Even where demand is high, building new space and finding teachers who fit the faith make quick expansion difficult. archynewsy

How-To Resources

ARTICLES

Link – ARTICLE (CAPE) Advantages for students in faith-based schools

Link – ARTICLE (CMU) Religious schools and civic formation

Link – ARTICLE (Knott)What we are learning about Catholic schools

Link – BOOK (UCPress) Lost classroom, lost community

Link – BOOK (HA) Religion’s impact on success: God, grades, and graduation

RESEARCH / REPORT

Link – RESEARCH (LMI) The catholic school advantage

Link – RESEARCH (PLOS) School types in adolescence and subsequent health and well-being

Link – RESEARCH (Tandfon) Publicly funded religious schools

Link – REPORT (Tufts) Catholic school students civic involvement

Link – REPORT (NCLD) Private schools and students w/disabilities

THOUGHT LEADERS

Nicole Stelle Garnett – Law professor at Notre Dame and senior policy advisor to its Alliance for Catholic Education. She is seen as the legal scholar who did the most to advance the idea of religious charter schools.

Key work: “Lost Classroom, Lost Community” (2014), written with Margaret Brinig. It finds that when an urban Catholic school closes, crime and disorder go up and neighbors trust each other less. New charter schools didn’t fill that gap.press.uchicago

Main finding: Chicago police beats with an open Catholic school had about 30% less serious crime than beats without one. The pattern held in Philadelphia but not in Los Angeles, and the authors say they can’t prove the closures caused it. aliveinchrist.osv

Ashley Rogers Berner – Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education. snfagora.jhu

Key work: “Pluralism and American Public Education: No One Way to School” (2017). She argues that many democracies use public money to fund many kinds of schools, including religious ones, without running them all. charleskochfoundation

Main idea: The U.S. single-system model grew out of 19th-century Protestant fears of Catholic influence. She says a democracy shouldn’t favor a secular worldview over a religious one. theimaginativeconservative

Ilana M. Horwitz – Sociologist and assistant professor at Tulane University. ilanahorwitz

Key work: “God, Grades, and Graduation” (Oxford, 2022), which won an American Sociological Association book award. It draws on 10 years of survey data from more than 3,000 teens. .ilanahorwitz

Main finding: Deeply religious teens get better grades because they tend to be more conscientious and cooperative. They also complete more schooling, but they often choose less selective colleges than their grades would allow. The academic boost is biggest for working-class and middle-class boys.heterodoxacademy

Why it matters: Her research is about students’ own faith rather than the type of school they attend, so it also applies to religious students in public schools. educationnext

References

Fontdevila, C., & Vanderhoven, E. (2026). Publicly funded religious schools: for what purposes, and with what effects? Connecting normative and empirical debates. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 47(3), 444–462.

Jeynes, W. (2012). A meta-analysis on the effects and contributions of public, private charter, and religious schools on student outcomes. Peabody Journal of Education 87(3), 305. Link

Jeynes. (2002). A meta-analysis of the effects of attending religious schools and religiosity on Black and Hispanic academic achievement. Education and Urban Society.