Here on Long Island, the Catholic grammar schools are having some hard times. I maintain this is due not so much to the tuition, but to the tuition ON TOP OF the outrageous property (school) taxes we have here.
And to top it off, our diocese is among those that opted to largely abandon truly Catholic education in favor of the odious Common Core Curriculum (and before that, the NYS curriculum).
That is not to say there isn’t a difference; there certainly is — notably in discipline and expected behavior. However, MANY parents choose to save money by sending their children to public elementary schools and THEN to Catholic high schools which are doing just fine here on the Island. I can think of only two that have closed in recent years: LaSalle Military Academy (they went all squishy and started to admit girls — that was the death knell), and St. Joseph’s Academy (run by the extremely squishy Sisters of St. Joseph. Now they lease it out to a Muslim school — no, I’m not joking http://www.newsday.com/long-island/catholic-campus-houses-suffolk-s-first-islamic-school-1.6159600 ).
I submit that your area may suffer from the same sort of problem, as I know NJ’s property taxes are pretty awful, too.
Regards,
Yes, I’d imagine the problems on LI are similar to NJ. Here, the closed schools are sometimes rented out to public school districts; the same children may even attend, but it is now a public school. Revenue for a parish in exchange for the souls of children...