Whether looking at academic organization or expectations, coursetaking patterns, achievement scores, dropout rates, educational expectations, or college completion rates, Catholic high schools create opportunities for disadvantaged students that are rarely available in public high schools. The curriculum of a Catholic school, however, is based upon a communal organization with specific characteristics that lend themselves to greater educational achievement. Socially, the internal life of the Catholic school is structured to promote many different opportunities for personal interaction and shared experiences among those who work in the school, attend it, and support it. These and other formal and informal events foster a community spirit that supports the school's academic mission. Similarly, teachers' roles are broadly defined beyond simply being subject-matter or curriculum experts.
Catholic educators view teaching as a vocation, a ministry of service.
Collegial relationships among faculty create a shared sense of purpose, and social interaction outside the school both among themselves and with students and their families reinforces that sense of purpose. These features encourage a respectful personalism that guides behavior and enables the school to function effectively as a moral community with norms of proper behavior. Larger public schools require more formal and bureaucratic modes of communication that make personalism and the resulting moral community more difficult to achieve. Further, Catholic high schools are autonomous and decentralized, especially when compared to the centrally-controlled public schools. Nearly all important decisions in Catholic high schools are made on-site by the principal and teachers, allowing a school to develop a distinctive character and to be sensitive to unique situations.