- The academic organization and normative environments of Catholic high schools enhanced student achievement, according to the findings, and these same school features narrowed the gaps in achievement typically associated with minority status, SES, and track placement.
- The students who suffered most from the adverse effects of size were the economically disadvantaged and minority students.
- Despite other possible benefits for students, single-sex schools do not produce higher achievement than coeducational schools. However, the review of the studies of school size indicates that size dramatically affects student achievement and its equitable distraction, even though the effect is likely to be indirect.
- Student achievement is consistently somewhat higher in Catholic schools, according to the studies reviewed here, but whether Catholic schools continue to provide minority and lower SES students with a “common school” experience remains a question.
- The social capital and communal organization theories provide compelling conceptual frameworks for understanding school effects, but leave peer effects largely to inference and implication.