Margaret F. BrinigNicole Stelle Garnett

Notre Dame Law School

Catholic Schools, Urban Neighborhoods, and Education Reform

The Project• Approximately 2000 K12 Catholic schools, most

of them located in urban neighborhoods, have closed during the last two decades. The Archdiocese of Chicago (the subject of our study) closed or consolidated more than 160 schools since 1984.

• While the beneficial effects of Catholic schools on their students is well known, there is little understanding of these schools as neighborhood institutions.

• We suspect that Catholic schools are important sources of social capital in urban neighborhoods.

Archdiocese of Chicago schools

• Largest nonpublic school system in United States, approximately 9,000 students currently. The number of schools shrank from around 400 in 1984 to 267 in 2004.

• Questions:– Did school closings affect neighborhoods as well as students?

How?– Are effects on social cohesion and disorder connected to later

higher crime?– Do charter schools have the same neighborhood effects as

Catholic schools?

Data on Schools & Parishes• The Archdiocese of Chicago provided information

about open and closed schools– Plotted location of schools using mapping program (ARGIS)

• Information about parish leadership obtained from the Official Catholic Directory (date of ordination, priest’s length of term as pastor, whether there was an administrator, whether a member of a religious order).

• Abuse data from www.bishopaccountability.org.

Closed Catholic Schools (1984-2004)

Charter Schools in Chicago 2006-07

Data On Chicago Neighborhoods • Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN):

– In 1994, PHDCN recorded and coded observable disorder in 80 Chicago “neighborhood clusters” and surveyed 4000 Chicago residents to measure social cohesion, social control, and collective efficacy in these clusters (Sampson & Raudenbush, 1999).

• PHDCN personnel matched Catholic schools to PHDCN neighborhood clusters, enabling us to know

(a) Whether school was ever open in a PHDCN neighborhood cluster (all but four had an open school in 1984)

(b) Whether, when, and in what PHDCN neighborhood cluster a school closure occurred.

• Demographic data from 1990 and 2000 Censuses

• Crime data (by police beat) for six serious crimes from 1999-2005 provided by the Chicago Police Department.

Disaggregation of School Closure Decisions from Demographic Variables

• Not surprisingly, schools were more likely to close in poor minority neighborhoods, especially Latino neighborhoods.

• To enable us to prove a causal effect between school closures and neighborhood decline, we sought to understand whether non-demographic variables predicted closures as well.– Discussions with Archdiocesan officials yielded insights into non-

demographic factors predictive of closures, emphasized “pastor effects.”

• We found that a school was significantly more likely to close as pastor aged (years since ordination) or if there was “irregularity” in the parish (run by administrator, associated with abuse, etc.).

Predicting Catholic School Closing1984-1994

Variable B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(B)irregularity in parish (administrator; sister or lay head of school)

2.304 .160 206.953 1 .000 10.010

years priest has been ordained .012 .004 7.779 1 .005 1.012

share Black in 1990 census tract 2.189 .149 214.851 1 .000 8.923

share Hispanic in 1990 census tract 2.266 .182 154.256 1 .000 9.645

poverty rate in 1990 census tract 1.629 .342 22.699 1 .000 5.099

Constant -2.758 .163 284.879 1 .000 .063

Cox and Snell R2 =.212, N= 2986 (same idea with 200 school sample)

Step 1: Measuring School Closure Effects on Neighborhood Social Capital

• Modeled causation using two-stage least-squared (2SLS) regression using (a) variables predicting school closures and (b) the school closures’ and demographic variables’ effect on: – Physical and social disorder (surveys)– Social cohesion (survey)

Results

• 2SLS Model predicted:–Nearly half variance in disorder among

neighborhoods with closed and open schools (R2: .458)– Seventy percent of variance in social

cohesion (R2: .701)

Step Two: School Closures and Crime

• Obtained data on incidence of major crime (by police beat) from Chicago Police Department (1999-2005)

• Matched beat to – Catholic schools (opened and closed)– Charter schools

School Closures and Crime (Raw Data)

School Closings and Crime

• The task of measuring the effects of closures on crime was complicated by the fact that crime was decreasing across Chicago during our period of study.

• With help from statisticians and a complicated model (boosted logistical regression), we found that crime decreased less in police beats where Catholic schools closed.– That is, closings affected the slope of the decline in crime.– The average rate of crime’s decline from 1999-2005 was nearly

25%, while for those where the schools closed it also declined, but only by roughly 17%.

The slope/closing relationship

Step 3: Catholic and Charter Schools and Crime (regressions)

• Also measured the effects of open Catholic schools and open charter schools.

• Police beats with open Catholic schools (controlling for demographics) had about 30% less crime than those without.

• Charter schools had no statistically significant effect, even when they were in closed Catholic schools.

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Replication

• We replicated our study in Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

• The results in Philadelphia were similar (if not more robust).

• In Los Angeles, we did not find any school effects on crime or social capital.

We Don’t Know the “why”… Some hypotheses

1. The “schools effect”? (seems unlikely given charter school results)

2. Longevity?

3. Religious institutions?

4. Neighborhood institutions?

5. Jane Jacobs?

6. The “Catholic school effect” in another form?

Networks in Chicago for three parish schools, and after two schools closed

Implications

• For the Church:– Leadership matters, Latinos matter– Schools are doing social justice work, both inside

and outside the classroom

• For public policy: Parental choice policies are not simply about educational results, but also about neighborhood stability.

“Education reformers should look for ways to nurture existing social capital and help it grow. Community-based charter schools are one way; so (again) is private school choice. That’s a particularly powerful way to engage faith communities in expanding their mission into education. And … urban Catholic schools have been in the social-capital business for a century, to great effect. We must do everything we can to stem their demise.

Let’s be honest, though: Growing social capital is a different mission from growing academic achievement. They are probably related, but sometimes clash. If community-based charters or faith-based voucher schools are doing important work on the social-capital front, but are not getting the test scores we seek, it creates a real dilemma for us. We’ve got to tread carefully.”

- Michael Petrelli, “How Schools Can Solve Robert Putnam’s Poverty Paradox,” Education Next, June 12, 2015