Outcomes
After a brand new constitution faculty opens close by, enrollment at native Catholic faculties falls by 2 p.c, or about six college students within the common measurement faculty, inside two years (see Determine 2). The destructive influence on enrollment will increase over the following decade. The chance of a Catholic faculty closing will increase after a constitution faculty opens, as nicely. In Okay–8 faculties, a Catholic faculty’s probability of closing rises to about 1 to three.5 proportion factors in annually past the second yr after a constitution faculty opening. Along with the enrollment impacts, this implies that throughout 5 years, enrollment at a Okay–8 Catholic faculty newly situated inside a five-mile radius of a constitution faculty will drop by practically 10 p.c and the danger the varsity will shut grows by greater than 4 proportion factors.
We additionally have a look at how a constitution opening impacts the racial composition of close by Catholic faculties. After a constitution opens, the share of white college students in close by Catholic faculties shrinks by 1.4 p.c, whereas a faculty’s percentages of each Black and Hispanic college students enhance barely.
Our evaluation depends on the idea that each affected and unaffected Catholic faculties had parallel enrollment developments earlier than a constitution opens and would have continued on the identical parallel path had the brand new faculty not come to city. Nonetheless, one other complicating issue was at play in the course of the research interval. The speedy charter-school growth of the early 2000s occurred simply as revelations of clergy intercourse abuse had been most prominently within the information, which can have influenced households’ choices to enroll or proceed in Catholic faculties. Certainly, a research by Ali Moghtaderi discovered that reviews of abuse after 2002, when media protection expanded dramatically nationwide, had a pronounced and lasting destructive influence on Catholic faculty enrollment declines and closures.
We don’t consider that the timing and influence of the scandal have an effect on our findings. As a result of all Catholic faculties had been doubtlessly related to the church intercourse abuse scandal, each faculty skilled the destructive influence no matter whether or not a constitution faculty opened close by. As an additional test, we individually analyze enrollment and closure impacts from 1998 by 2002—the 4 years earlier than essentially the most novel and substantial reviews of abuse had been made public—and discover the identical basic outcomes as these for the total research interval.
Altering attitudes and state insurance policies to restrict the expansion of constitution faculties might additionally affect impacts on Catholic faculties. We examine impacts in states that cap charters to people who don’t restrict development; in states with out caps, Catholic faculties expertise stronger and extra pronounced enrollment declines and elevated threat of closure. On common in a state with out a constitution cap, Catholic faculty enrollment drops by 2.5 p.c two years after a brand new constitution opens close by in comparison with 2 p.c in a state that limits constitution development.
