Recent research shows that local economically disadvantaged, marginalized and minority Catholic school students have significantly higher continuation and graduation rates than their counterparts in public schools.

The investigation, which was done by the school of education at Loyola Marymount University and released this spring, studied students funded by the Catholic Education Foundation (CEF) between 2001 and 2005. Researchers tracked 567 students from eighth to ninth grade and 205 students from ninth grade to high school graduation at nearly 30 Catholic schools throughout the Los Angeles Archdiocese, which includes Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

While virtually all of the Catholic school eighth-graders went on to ninth grade, 98 percent of high school students graduated on time in four years. This rate is almost 35 percent higher than graduation rates for public schools in the three counties for the same year. (The dropout rate for some urban high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District is as high as 55 percent.)

"What's so remarkable about these findings," said Professor Shane Martin, who co-authored the study with LMU colleagues, "is when you look at the demographics of the sample group, the students receiving tuition awards were among the most disadvantaged and at-risk students in Los Angeles."

The dean of the school of education at Loyola Marymount points out that Catholic schools have often been accused of what some educators call "the selection factor," or creaming the best students off the top. And this was precisely why he wanted to study poor minority students given tuition assistance by CEF.

Even more astonishing, according to Martin, were the findings when researchers looked at a subset of CEF students considered most "at risk" because of low socioeconomic status and other life factors. Every child in the SOS (Save Our Students) program was successful - either staying in school or graduating from high school. And these youths were often living in shelters or with grandparents, had parents either incarcerated or dead and were exposed to gangs and drug violence.

"It's just really amazing, again, when we look at the demographics of these students," Martin said. "The indications are that the environment of the Catholic school is making a difference."

The educator, who has taught fulltime at LMU since 1995, believes there are a number of reasons for the positive results.

The "decentralized" structure of Catholic schools encourages principals to make decisions about curriculum, staff development and how faculty are organized. Moreover, it holds them accountable for results and success. Decisions get made close to the students, rather than coming from a downtown administrative office.

Catholic schools also usually are much smaller that public schools, which fosters a stronger sense of community and ownership by students and parents, he explains. And then there's the big focus on academic excellence. Performing "time-on-task" assignments in the classroom plus doing lots of homework gives Catholic education a genuine rigor. Teachers expect students to succeed, which often leads to self-fulfilling prophesies.

Martin says on top of all this, of course, are the bedrock religious and Catholic values pupils receive throughout the school year. "We're talking about the education of the whole person," he said. "We're talking about the real personal and individual care of the student.

"And then you add to that the ability of the Catholic school to engage in Catholic rituals and traditions - the faith-based and values-based practices - that's powerful, for both Catholic and non-Catholic young people. It really forms community. It forms character and a sense of belonging, a sense of personhood.

"While this is powerful for all students, it's particularly - particularly - powerful for ethnic minority students and for poorer students," he stressed. "Because they may not be experiencing those types of things in other parts of their lives."