Free Republic

Department of Justice Files Statement of Interest in Vermont First Amendment Free Exercise Case United States Supports Parochial High School Students’ Claim that State Improperly Barred Them from College Course Program The Department of Justice today filed a Statement of Interest in the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont supporting parents and parochial high school students who claim that the State discriminated against them in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution by barring them from a state program paying tuition for high school students to take up to two college courses. The case, A.M....

Students who attended Catholic high schools were approximately twice as likely as students who attended public high schools to go on and graduate from college, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. According to the report, 61.9 percent of Catholic high school students went on to earn a bachelor’s degree or higher by the time they were 8 years out of high school. By contrast, only 31.1 percent of public school students had gone on to earn a bachelor’s degree or higher. …

[snip] Low enrollment put Cardinal Maida Academy on the brink of closure in 2005, but this year the number of students is up by a third from last year, according to the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg. That success is due in part to non-Catholic students. Though 87 percent of students enrolled at area Catholic schools are Catholic, about 30 percent of Cardinal Maida's students are not. The diocese saw Catholic school enrollment go down about 6 percent this year, a number diocesan spokesman Jerry Zufelt said is consistent with a declining population of school-age children. Still, Zufelt said, a handful...