Much of the public discussion of Catholic schools has focused on their students' performance but ignores the values that have always supported them. Thirty-five years ago, the experiences and successes of Catholic schools in low-income American communities began to inform a significant part of what came to be called the school reform movement. The success that Catholic schools were attaining with low-income children of color made clear that success was possible in these communities and that schools could make a difference. Whether the higher academic outcomes of Catholic school students, on average, were the result of self-selection or an actual school effect, has long been argued. But Catholic schools were never focused solely, or even primarily, on achieving better measurable results than the public schools surrounding them. That role was thrust upon them as the researchers and others concerned with the low performance of traditional public schools looked to Catholic schools as a possible model for larger reform efforts. Of course, test scores and graduation rates mattered then, and they continue to matter today, but Catholic schools have always served a larger purpose. The motivation for this report is to shed light on that larger purpose in the context of school reform today.