This article examines two critical questions related to equality of educational opportunity. First, does the academic advantage that was observed in Catholic high schools more than two decades ago continue to hold for contemporary students in Catholic middle schools? Second, how closely do different school sectors adhere to the common school…

This article reexamines the conjecture of James S. Coleman that intergenerational social closure promotes student achievement in high schools, analyzing the best national data on academic achievement and social networks: the 2002 and 2004 waves of the Education Longitudinal Study. The results show that within the Catholic school sector, schools…

The authors examine whether standards based accountability reforms of the past two decades have closed the achievement gap among public and private high school students. They analyzed data from the Education Longitudinal Study (ELS) to examine sector differences in high school achievement in the era of standards based reforms. The authors found…

Research has shown that students who like school have higher academic achievement and a lower incidence of disciplinary problems, absenteeism, truancy, and dropping out of school than do those who dislike school. Thus, one way to improve academic outcomes is to increase students' attraction to school. This study focused on the role of teachers in…

Discusses objections to her research raised by Alexander and Pallas, and defends her results. Educational researchers have been persistently trivializing the importance of schooling effects. The research community should attempt to specify how schools do make a difference. (CS)

The study showed little support for the notion that cognitive development in Catholic schools significantly outpaces that in public schools between the sophomore and senior years. In addition, it was found that student background characteristics relate to test performance in similar fashion in public and Catholic schools. (RM)

Discusses Kilgore's criticism of the authors' contention that there is little reason to think Catholic schools superior in promoting high levels of cognitive performance. After discussing Kilgore's different predictor variables, measurement strategies, and criteria, the authors stand by their conclusion. Indeed, public schools do somewhat better…

Discusses the conclusion reached by Coleman, Hoffer and Kilgore in their report "Public and Private Schools" that tuition tax credits would increase minority and low-income family participation in private, secondary schools. The implications of estimates of enrollment changes from tuition tax credits are analyzed. (AM)

Criticizes the report "Public and Private Schools" by Coleman, Hoffer, and Kilgore for failing to consider alternative explanations of school effectiveness and for drawing narrow policy implications. Student body composition and school admissions practices need to be considered in evaluating educational policy alternatives. (RM)

Catholic schools have a positive effect on verbal and mathematics achievement growth from the sophomore to senior year of high school. Catholic schools produce higher-achieving students in academic programs, require more semesters of academic coursework, and assign more homework. (Author/RM)

Results suggest that there are no pervasive Catholic-school effects. Public schools had a small advantage in science and civics; Catholic schools had an advantage in reading, vocabulary, mathematics, and writing. All of the effects were very small. On average, the Catholic-school advantage was only about five percent of a standard deviation.…

The authors recap the main issues in their critique of Coleman, Hoffer, and Kilgore (CHK) as well as CHK's rejoinder. These issues include reliability and validity of test scores, the use of particular statistical models and inferences from these, and the importance of school policies in assuring higher achievement among students. (IS)

Analyzes research which provides strong evidence indicating higher achievement in vocabulary and mathematics for comparable students in Catholic and other private schools than in public schools. The results are less consistent in reading. The analysis also shows the elements of school policy that can account for these differences. (RM)

The findings of three major studies that assessed the impact of public vs. Catholic schooling on how much students learned in the last two years of high school are compared. The studies are Hoffer, Greeley, and Coleman (1985), Willms (1985), and Alexander and Pallas (1985). (RM)

Presented is a general statistical methodology for analyzing hierarchically structured data. The use of the methodology is illustrated by reexamining the "High School and Beyond" data and the controversy over the effectiveness of public and Catholic schools. (Author/RM)