In past posts, I've made references to my Franco-American (French Canadian) heritage. There's been a strident anti-Catholic streak in American history;
In the era of mass immigration, anti-Catholicism often found expression around the issue of education. Rightly fearing that native Protestants wished to inject public schools with an evangelical and sectarian spirit, Catholics created a sweeping, parallel system.Catholic schools were an alternative to public education in those days (not the secularized form familiar today but more of a generic version of Protestantism, including an anti-Catholic perspective). As Irish, French, Italian and other predominantly Catholic immigrants established themselves, the establishment saw the Catholic schools as anti-inclusive, Franco-Americans in particular drew the attention of groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Catholic schools surfaced in national politics around the end of the Grant Administration (Blaine was a candidate for the 1876 GOP POTUS nomination seeking anti-Catholic support). There was an attempt to pass a federal Blaine Amendment which failed to pass the Senate; it wasn't explicitly anti-Catholic but it attempted to ban money from any state to support "sectarian" schools. However Blaine state amendments proliferated, especially as a precondition for statehood. The Maine senator got the 1884 GOP POTUS nomination against Grover Cleveland:
[I]n most northern jurisdictions only pietist-Protestant church members were allowed to be teachers in the public schools. Daily reading of the Protestant Bible, daily Protestant prayers and Protestant hymns were common in the public schools, and school textbooks were rife with anti-Catholic propaganda. Thus, New York City school textbooks spoke broadly of “the deceitful Catholics,” and pounded into their children, Catholic and Protestant alike, the message that “Catholics are necessarily, morally, intellectually, infallibly, a stupid race.”...Teachers delivered homilies on the evils of Popery, and also on deeply felt pietist theological values: the wickedness of alcohol (the “demon rum”) and the importance of keeping the Sabbath. In the 1880s and 1890s, zealous pietists began working ardently for antialcohol instruction as a required part of the public-school curriculum; by 1901, every state in the Union required instruction in temperance.Since most Catholic children went to public rather than parochial schools, the Catholic authorities were understandably anxious to purge the schools of Protestant requirements and ceremonies, and of anti-Catholic textbooks. To the pietists, these attempts to de-Protestantize the public schools were intolerable “Romish aggression.”
The transition to today's secular schools stripped of nondenominational Protestantism is beyond the scope of this post, but the judicial system would take an increasingly skeptical view on the free exercise of religion and any toehold into establishment of a government religion through the schools. And roughly 90% of K-12 students attend public schools.
Catholic schools are not free, and not every parish sponsors one. But usually parents' costs are often based on a family's ability to pay, and I've seen operation costs just 60% or so compared to public schools. My own Dad attended public schools while my mom and her brother attended gender specific parish schools. I attended grades 2-4 in a Florida Catholic school, and parts of my fifth and sixth grades in my uncle's old school (Dad had to find family quarters on 2 military assignments, and the rest of us stayed with our maternal grandfather in the interim). I spent the rest of K-12 in public schools. I don't know why I attended just those years; I know there was a school bus that went on base for us in Florida. That may not have been an option elsewhere and/or my being the oldest of 7 on an NCO's limited budget.
I can attest to the quality and rigor of Catholic schools, although I'm sure there are nuances among schools in policies, costs, staffing, performances, etc. The religious content was limited in nature (in fact, many non-Catholic students attend these schools and if and when religious matters are discussed, non-Catholic students have alternate accommodations, like a study hall.). We weren't affected by SCOTUS' ruling on prayer in public schools. I did manage to shock my Mom, though. My second grade teacher asked me if I would like to lead the class in prayer one day; I honestly took her literally and said, "Not particularly." (I didn't realize this was a subtle way of her telling me to lead in prayer, not a request.) My Mom still remembers that to this day.
My beloved late maternal uncle was diocesan priest/pastor--and a brilliant administrator, with a knack for fixing up up neglected, crumbling facilities. My uncle, although he had strong conservative views, tended to be an unflappable man of few words who didn't like to repeat himself. One day I as a young adult was talking to him and brought up Catholic schools, expecting him to be positively diaposed to the topic only to find it triggered a mini-rant about how schools didn't pay for themselves (in many cases anonymous donors supplement parent tuition contributions) and were a drain on parish finances, never mind the administrative overhead in his time and effort. Now not all diocesan parishes have schools (most of the ones I've registered at over my adult years haven't had one), I do know my uncle was assigned to a school parish after that conversation, and he never griped about it to me.
The figures I've seen are Catholic elementary school tuition about $5K/year (secondary schools higher) and about $15K cost per public school student. Make no mistake; for middle/lower income families, especially with multiple kids in school (even with steep discounts), this is a huge price to pay versus "free" public school, and parents don't get any help from the state to defray their costs. The general quality of academic achievement is highly competitive:
“Every year for the last 20 years, Catholic schools have outperformed public schools on NAEP tests—reading, math, science, computer literacy, geography, history,” said Sister Dale McDonald, PBVM, director of Public Policy and Educational Research for the National Catholic Education Association.
Notice we are not talking about religious doctrine mastery: these are secular core subjects. But one of the reasons I'm discussing these issues is to confront the nonsense that the idea of education choice is a scam meant for a public subsidy of the Catholic Church. Education is one of the missions of the Church. There are about 6K Catholic schools among 17K parishes. More than 5000 Catholic schools have closed since 1970 due to financial problems.
Now I don't mean to suggest that all private schools are equally high quality, relatively inexpensive and effective. Reasons for relatively lower costs for Catholic schools include lower teaching costs (e.g., religious order priests and sisters) and streamlined administrative costs (see Bob Geier's comment here for more details).
The public school monopoly, including teacher unions, opposes competition, even public charter schools. Religious-affiliated schools in particular have found bureaucratic resistance every step of the way to any general purpose funding (e.g., for secular subject textbook). A good summary of the history under the establishment clause scrutiny can be found here. One recent sample case that grabbed my attention was Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer; a Lutheran school was denied playground matting material available through a state program, solely because of the school's religious sponsorship. SCOTUS overruled the state, arguing this was discrimination against religious identity.
Carson v Makin was another similar case in a different context. In Maine there are some isolated areas without local public schools. Parents are provided funding applicable to a variety of public or private schools--except, of course, for religious-affiliated schools. Note the funding was through parents, not directly to the school from the government. Once again, we see SCOTUS ruling this amounted to discrimination against religion. Of course, the Establishment absolutists like Justice Sotomayor went ballistic.
Let's be clear: government funding of any kind often comes with unwelcome strings attached, and in some Googling on this topic, I've seen dozens of schools that intentionally do not accept any government funding exactly for that reason.
I encourage competition in the education market and the Carson decision is a small but welcome step in that direction.
