Catholic Schools Change To Compete With Charter Schools

They were the default alternative for decades

ALBANY, N.Y. — A recent article in the Albany Government Law Review suggests that the emergence of charter schools — public schools not bound by the same operating procedures as conventional schools — has siphoned many students from Catholic schools, many of whom are minorities in poor, working-class neighborhoods.

This has added an additional dimension to the pressures that Catholic schools have faced in recent decades, as they have been forced to introduce sweeping changes in many U.S. dioceses to cope with the changed realities of sharply declining student populations, greatly reduced numbers of religious sisters and brothers willing and able to work in the schools, and severe financial constraints at the parish and diocese levels.