READING, WRITING, AND ROMANISM...:

CITY CATHOLIC SCHOOLS TROUNCE REST IN READING AND MATH (YOAV GONEN, 6/29/09, NY Daily News)

The Archdiocese of New York's 132 city elementary schools continue to outperform public schools by leaps and bounds in reading, and to a lesser extent in math, new statistics show.

Seventy-eight percent of Catholic-school eighth-graders aced the state reading exam -- 21 percentage points higher than the public-school kids -- and 82 percent passed the math test, 9 percentage points better than their public-school counterparts.

In fourth grade, 85 percent of Catholic-school kids met or surpassed state benchmarks in reading -- 16 percentage points above the public schools -- while 88 percent did so in math, 3 percent higher than the public-school youngsters.