The State of Catholic Schools in the U.S.

The State of Catholic Schools in the U.S. | Jeff Ziegler | Catholic World Report

Signs of hope despite a bleak prognosis

The Church worldwide is in the midst of a Catholic education boom. Between 1997 and 2008, the number of Catholic primary schools rose from 86,505 to 93,315—an increase of a dozen schools every week—to keep pace with a 20 percent increase in enrollment in the same period. Likewise, the number of Catholic secondary schools grew from 34,849 to 42,234—an increase of 13 schools each week—alongside a 28 percent rise in enrollment. These gains outstripped the growth in overall Catholic population (16 percent) and world population (15 percent) during the same period.

In the midst of this Catholic education boom worldwide, the Church in the United States has suffered a dramatic decline in its education apostolate. According to the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA), the number of Catholic schools fell from 8,146 to 6,980 between 2000 and 2010—a loss of 117 schools every year. Combined primary and secondary school enrollment also declined 22 percent, from 2,647,301 to 2,065,872.

The roots of this decline stretch back decades. "School enrollment reached its peak during the early 1960s when there were more than 5.2 million students in almost 13,000 schools across the nation," according to the latest NCEA school data report. In 1990, some 2.5 million students were enrolled in 8,719 schools. The 1990s saw the loss of 573 schools, even as enrollment grew by 150,000. The enrollment gains of the 1990s, however, were wiped away by the steep declines of the last decade.

According to statistics published in the 2011 Catholic Almanac, the 10 dioceses with the highest combined primary and secondary school enrollment are Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Cleveland, St. Louis, Cincinnati, St. Paul-Minneapolis, and Boston. On the other hand, 10 dioceses—Juneau, Anchorage, Lubbock (Texas), Fairbanks, Baker (Oregon), Las Cruces (New Mexico), Amarillo, Pueblo (Colorado), and Cheyenne—have total enrollments of under 1,000 students.

The dioceses with the highest and lowest numbers of students, however, are not necessarily the dioceses where Catholic schools are proportionately strongest and weakest. The 15 dioceses with the highest ratio of Catholic school students to overall Catholic population are Covington (Kentucky), Memphis, Louisville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Wichita, Jefferson City, Omaha, Mobile, Evansville (Indiana), Jackson (Mississippi), Kansas City-St. Joseph, St. Louis, Lexington (Kentucky), and New Orleans.

Conversely, the 15 dioceses with the weakest culture of Catholic education—the dioceses with the lowest ratio of Catholic school students to overall Catholic population—are Brownsville, Texas (which has the lowest ratio), Las Cruces, Las Vegas, Fresno, Lubbock, El Paso, San Bernardino, Laredo (Texas), San Angelo (Texas), Pueblo, Corpus Christi, Anchorage, Fort Worth, Juneau, and Dallas. Catholic school culture, in general, is thus strongest near the Ohio River, the central Mississippi River, and parts of the Gulf Coast; it is weakest in portions of Texas, California, and in Alaska.

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