How media should do its job
The closing of four Catholic elementary schools in Chicago, Saints Bruno & Richard, Saint Jerome, Saint Stanislaus Kostka Academy, and Saint Francis Borgia looks at first glance like a familiar story: Declining enrollment, rising costs, and another set of urban parish schools unable to make the numbers work. But beneath the surface sits a more complicated policy question. If these schools deliver solid academic outcomes at substantially lower per-pupil cost than the public system, should policymakers care? And if so, what tools, such as tax-credit scholarships, vouchers, or federal donor credits are appropriate to keep such schools alive?
On January 16th the Chicago Tribune reported on the closing of those schools. There was only talk of the money-raising efforts of those schools falling short of the funds needed to survive. On January 27th the Chicago Tribune reported on the Big Beautiful Bill’s federal educational voucher program and whether Governor JB Pritzker would opt into it. Even though the reports were only 24 hours apart, there was no reporting on the cross-over of the two reports. Does the Tribune have any editors left?
This is not merely a parochial matter. It is a test case in how cities manage educational capacity, parental choice and taxpayer dollars.
Catholic urban schools have long punched above their financial weight. Their model is lean: Smaller administrations, lower teacher salaries and pensions than unionized public systems, parish and donor support, and tighter community expectations around behavior and attendance. Tuition at the four closing Chicago schools generally ran in the $6,000–$7,500 range, often discounted through aid. Even after accounting for parish subsidy and fundraising, credible estimates put their true operating cost around $9,000–$11,000 per student.
Compare that with Chicago Public Schools’ total per-pupil spending, which depending on the accounting method, commonly lands in the low-to-mid $20,000s, or higher, once pensions and central overhead are included. If you figure in pensions you can tack on another $3,250 per student. Average cost is not the same as marginal cost, but the gap is real enough to matter in policy discussions.
Academic quality is harder to measure across sectors because reporting systems differ. Public schools publish standardized state accountability metrics; private schools do not operate under the same regime. Still, multiple national and urban studies over decades have found Catholic school students, particularly low-income and minority students often show higher graduation rates and stronger test performance on average than demographically similar peers in public schools. Researchers have found family selection and household stability explain part of the difference. But even after statistical controls, a Catholic-school advantage often remains, especially on persistence and completion measures.
School culture plays a major role. Catholic schools tend to be smaller, more cohesive institutions with higher parent participation, expectations, and clearer behavioral norms. That structure can be especially beneficial for students from less stable households. None of this means every Catholic school outperforms every public school. Many CPS neighborhood and selective schools produce excellent results. But sector averages and long-run patterns that favor Catholic School outcomes are not random statistical noise.
So why are these four schools closing if they deliver education at a lower cost with at the very least mildly superior outcomes? The answer is arithmetic and demography. Small schools are financially fragile. Fixed building costs, staffing minimums and maintenance expenses don’t shrink smoothly with enrollment. A drop of 30 students can flip a budget from a balanced environment to a disastrous one. Chicago’s declining birth rates, neighborhood population shifts, and competition from charter and magnet options compound the pressure. When enrollment falls below a viability threshold, quality alone can’t save a school.
This is where policy intersects with reality. Illinois once operated a tax-credit scholarship program known as Invest in Kids. Donors received state tax credits for contributions to scholarship organizations, which then funded tuition for lower- and middle-income students attending private schools. Because funds flowed through private donations rather than direct appropriations, the program navigated around constitutional barriers to state support of religious schools. For many Catholic schools, it stabilized enrollment and reduced unpaid tuition. When it expired at the end of 2023, administrators reported immediate enrollment stress.
Would renewal have saved all four of the now-closing schools? Not necessarily, but it undoubtedly would have improved their odds. Financial models of small K-8 schools show that retaining or adding roughly 25 to 60 tuition-supported students can close typical operating deficits in the $150,000–$300,000 range. Scholarship pipelines matter at the margin, and margins are where closures happen.
Now comes a new variable: As one part of The Big Beautiful Bill, a federal tax-credit scholarship framework scheduled to take effect in 2027 allows donors to claim federal credit capped per taxpayer for contributions to nonprofit scholarship-granting organizations. Like state tax-credit models, funds are privately donated but federally incentivized. Scholarships can be used for private school tuition and related educational services. Structurally, this resembles Invest in Kids more than a traditional voucher.
If implemented at scale, such a program could channel meaningful scholarship dollars to urban private schools, including Catholic schools, assuming state regulatory frameworks permit SGOs to operate smoothly and schools to participate. Because the money is routed through private donations, it is generally more legally resilient than direct public vouchers. Politically, however, it remains contested terrain.
Critics argue voucher and scholarship programs divert attention and resources from public schools and lack uniform accountability. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), vehemently opposes them. The notorious CTU doesn’t want anybody or anything messing with their monopoly. Supporters counter that when funds follow students rather than systems, families gain leverage and taxpayers may benefit if students are educated effectively at lower cost.
The fiscal question deserves precision. It is misleading to claim every student who attends a Catholic school instead of a public school “saves” the full difference between average per-pupil costs. Public systems carry large, fixed costs such as buildings, debt service, and pensions that don’t disappear when a handful of students leave. Major savings materialize only when enrollment shifts are large enough and geographically concentrated enough to reduce staffing or close facilities.
Still, capacity matters. If hundreds of students are absorbed by lower-cost schools without requiring new public classrooms, new hires or new buildings, marginal cost avoidance becomes real. In that scenario, supporting nonpublic seats through capped, family-directed scholarships can be fiscally rational as well as educationally superior.
What should policymakers take from these closures? First, urban Catholic schools are not interchangeable relics; nearly all of them are functioning community institutions delivering education efficiently. Second, once such schools close, reopening them is extraordinarily difficult. Buildings are sold, staff disperses, community ties fray. Third, modest, well-designed scholarship mechanisms can have outsized stabilizing effects at relatively low public cost, especially when targeted to lower-income families and capped at levels below public marginal spending.
A sensible framework would follow a few principles: Aid should flow to families, not institutions; eligibility should be income-based; reporting on enrollment and student progress should be required; and subsidy levels should not exceed reasonable estimates of avoided public marginal cost. Programs should be sector-neutral and open to qualifying schools broadly, not tailored to rescue specific institutions. And public systems should pair choice expansion with honest capacity management, so savings are captured rather than stranded.
The four Chicago closures are not just sad local stories. They are signals. When lower-cost, community-anchored schools with good outcomes cannot survive because affordability tools vanish, the education ecosystem loses diversity and resilience. Whether through renewed state programs, federal tax-credit scholarships, or other family-directed mechanisms, policymakers who care about both outcomes and quality should at the very least run the numbers before letting such schools quietly disappear.
Three obstacles must be overcome. One is the current mayor of Chicago is nothing more than a flack for the CTU. The governor and his compliant legislature are not much better. Last is the complacency of the local media. Whether that is a crime of commission or omission doesn’t really matter.
