The Vanishing Urban Catholic School
The Vanishing Urban Catholic School
This chapter provides an overview of the Catholic school system in the United States, beginning with the rise of parish parochial schools as response to nativism and anti-Catholic bias in early public schools, proceeding to discuss their exponential growth from the late-nineteenth through mid-twentieth centuries and their contraction in response to suburbanization, and concluding with current trends, including declining enrollments and current school closures. Special attention is paid to the structure of the Catholic school system, to early debates about school funding, to the enactment of “Blaine Amendments” in state constitutions, the role of Catholic schools in urban neighborhoods, Catholic schools’ response to racial integration of parishes and neighborhoods, and their late-twentieth-century role as high-quality educational opportunities for disadvantaged students.
Keywords: parish, parochial, Catholic school, Blaine amendments, nativism, disadvantaged, suburbanization
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