The National Catholic Educational Association conducts Catholic education research as well as providing private education resources for a range of audiences.
NCEA published selected results from its annual survey of Catholic elementary and secondary schools, including enrollment patterns, regional geographic trends, types and locations of schools, student and staffing demographic characteristics, and student participation in selected education programs .
This annual report (2016-2017 academic year) presents national data on Catholic elementary and secondary schools.
Enrollment patterns, regional geographic trends, types and locations of schools, student and staffing demographic characteristics and student participation in selected education programs are reported.
Where data permit, the exhibits compare information across the last decade as well as the past five years.
U.S. Catholic school enrollment reached its peak during the early 1960s when there were more than 5.2 million students in almost thirteen thousand schools across the nation. The 1970s and 1980s saw a steep decline in both the number of schools and students.
By 1990, there were approximately 2.5 million students in 8,719 schools.
From the mid 1990s though 2000, there was a steady enrollment increase (1.3%) despite continued closings of schools.
In the 10 years since the 2006 school year, 1,511 schools were reported closed or consolidated (19.9%), while 314 school openings were reported.
Due to different definitions used by dioceses for consolidations, closings and their transitions into new configurations, along with actual new schools opened, the actual decrease in number of schools since 2006 is 1,064 schools (14.0%).
The number of students declined by 409,384 (17.6%). The most seriously impacted have been elementary schools.
The actual decrease in number of elementary schools in the twelve large urban areas of the country since 2006 is 338 schools (19.3%).
Since 2006, elementary school enrollment has declined by 27.6% in the 12 urban dioceses and 20.1% in the rest of the U.S.
To say that there is a crisis in Catholic education in this country is not to discount the profound generosity of many volunteers and teachers who sustain parish programs around the country. If their dedication were the only factor determining success, there would be no problem.
Yet in many if not most settings, religious education is not accomplishing its purpose: to hand on the faith from generation to generation.
Ineffective catechesis—whether in the parish setting or in Catholic schools—is not the sole cause.
For the most part, religious education as presently conducted does not give these young people a compelling reason to believe.
The first step is admitting there is a problem—and any parent who has dragged a squirming fifth grader to a Parish School of Religion class can say what it is: most 10-year-olds do not want to spend such time in a classroom.
More fundamentally, the assumptions built into the current system of religious education, developed at a different time and in a different cultural context, no longer hold.
There was a time when religious belief and self-identification were default positions, supported by social norms. But today, when young people are surrounded by a culture in which choosing to believe is more and more a revolutionary act, religious education must do much more than hand on the basic tenets of the faith.
Unless the option of belief is made real by family and community relationships that offer examples of true Christian discipleship, creedal affirmations are taking root in rocky soil.
What is needed are models of Catholic education that are forcus on Catholic formation. They work to make discipleship tangible and imaginable first, rather than focusing on transmitting the content of the faith. Not coincidentally, they can also be resource-intensive, requiring greater involvement and investment on the part of families, parish staff and Clergy.
No program, however, can ever replace the central role of parents as “the principal and first educators of their children”. The Church must develop a model which seeks to form parents for this mission.
Such a radical shift away from the traditional Catholic elementary school and Parish School of Religion model will require Bishops and Pastors to admit that the path we have been on for decades is not sufficient to respond to today’s needs and cannot be fixed merely with different books, better curricula or more training.
It will likewise require parents to not only teach the faith but live it out joyfully.
Now is the time for the Church to move urgently to develop religious formation programs that introduce children to the Person at the heart of our Faith, Jesus Christ, Who desires not only well-informed students but lifelong disciples.
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