M. Ted,

      I really do not have an idea as to what percentage of practicing Catholics send their children to parochial school but I suspect that it is somewhere around 40%. As far as I know you can be a good practicing Catholic and still send your children to public school. I lived in Staten Island, (Richmond County) NY which has the highest percentage of Catholics in the entire US and the parochial school attendance was under 40%. In Orthodox Jewish families you have a Yeshiva attendance rate of over 99%. You can not be considered a good practicing Orthodox Jew if your children attend public school. The existing Yeshivas are literally bursting at the seams and new ones are opening every year. Catholic schools are spread pretty evenly around the country and even if the general public had to pay for them it would not be that great of a strain on the districts. Yeshivas however tend to be concentrated in specific areas that are the homes of Orthodox Jewish communities. In my small town of Monsey, NY there are over 100 yeshivas alone. The Borough of Brooklyn, NY alone has more yeshivas than the entire country of Israel. Canada pays for Catholic education and I do not see them going broke up there. The problem here is only confined to the 3 districts that I mentioned above (Lawrence, NY, East Ramapo, NY & Lakewood, NJ) specificly because of the abnormally high concentrations of yeshiva students. And no, I do not think that the Pamela Greenbaums of this world are doing anybody a favor by filing frivolous lawsuits instead of trying to solve the problem through constructive dialouge.
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