Does Competition from Catholic Schools Enhance Public High School

Performance?Rachel Sederberg

SUMMARYCompetition from Catholic high schools may enhance public high school performance. Measuring the magnitude of this relationship, however, is complicated by the endogeneity of Catholic school enrollment. For example, Catholic high schools may lower public high school performance by cream skimming higher performing students; Catholic high schools may be more popular when public high school quality is low. We use preponderance of Catholic Church abuse arrests, convictions, and settlements as instruments for Catholic high school enrollments, and find that recent declines in Catholic school enrollment is associated with the decline in public high school performance. These results suggest that competition from Catholic high schools enhances public high school performance.

HYPOTHESISThe competitive effect from Catholic high schools will enhance public high school performance.

ENDOGENOUS FACTORSCatholic high school enrollment is affected by local high school characteristics. Where public high schools excel, the demand for private high schools falls, reducing private high schools enrollment. Such a relation would suggest that where Catholic school enrollments decrease, public schools should be improving.

Therefore, to determine whether a competitive or cream skimming effect is present, we require an exogenous instrument related to Catholic school enrollment but entirely independent of public school performance.

EXOGENOUS SHOCKSWe use three negative shocks to Catholic schools that are exogenous to public schools, abuse scandal: 1. Arrests, 2. Convictions, and 3. Settlements

CATHOLIC ABUSE DATA

ESTIMATION AND EQUATIONSIn the first stage, we estimate the effects of the abuse scandals on Catholic school enrollment for all diocese with schools.

First Stage: Catholic Enrollmentit = θ Sexual Abuse Measuresit + ϑPct.CatholicIndependenti + Real Incomeit + δPopulation Densityit + ηPct.Hispanicit + Xi’b + Wt’d + Z’itTrend + uit

Taking the predicted Catholic high school enrollments from the first stage, we estimate the effects of this predicted enrollment on public high school students’ performance on standardized reading and math exams.

Second Stage:Public High School Performanceit = aPredicted Catholic Enrollmentit +bPct.CatholicIndependenti + cReal Incomeit + dPopulation Densityit + fPct.Hispanicit + Xi’b + Wt’d + Z’itTrend + eit RESULTSFOR HIGH SCHOOL READING:For one thousand additional students enrolled in Catholic school, the portion of public high school students passing the state exam in English increases by 4.4 percentage points, but this is not statistically significant.

FOR HIGH SCHOOL MATH:Greater Catholic high school enrollment does enhance math performance. For every one thousand additional students enrolled in Catholic high school, the portion of public school high school students passing the state exam in mathematics increases by 4.0 percentage points.

CONCLUSIONCompetition from Catholic schools enhances public high school student learning and performance. The added competition encourages public high schools to enhance their teaching methods. Current public high school students experience lower school quality resulting from the loss of competition from Catholic high schools.

PREVIOUS RESEARCHThis project is a follow up to the research done by Carattini, Dills, Mulholland, and Sederberg (2012) on the same topic but in regard to elementary school education. Carattini, et. al. conclude that competition from private Catholic elementary schools enhances the performance of students in public elementary schools. Specifically, they find an additional thousand students enrolled in Catholic schools increasepublic elementary school pass rates in math by 2.7 percentage points. The result for reading is similar, although not statistically significant.

CITATIONCarattini, Juliana F., Dills, Angela K., Mulholland, Sean E., Sederberg, Rachel B., (2012). “Catholic Schools, Competition, and Public School Quality,” Economics Letters. 117, 334-336.