The Effectiveness of Catholic Primary Schooling

Abstract

Although extensive research has compared Catholic and public high schools, little is known about Catholic primary schools. Using unique data for two cohorts of primary school students, I find that Catholic schooling does not have a significant effect on mathematics and reading test scores. These findings do not change when school level test scores from the first-grade cohort are used to account for selection bias in the fourth-grade cohort. In fourth grade, Catholic schooling is associated with marginally fewer student absences than is public schooling.