Studies consistently show that Catholic schools produce positive impacts on educational outcomes. Many charter school networks in the United States now provide, what are essentially, secularized versions of the Catholic education model. However, charter schools cannot legally replicate the overt religious curriculum and mission of Catholic schools. Although difficult to disentangle its impacts from confounding variables, research suggests that religiosity is a positive predictor of educational outcomes. This relationship might suggest that religious-based education produces effects on outcomes of public value that could be difficult to replicate in secularized contexts. To examine this question we conducted an experiment where 180 secondary school students were randomly assigned to a priming task with religious, secularized, or neutral cues. We find that religious cues increase students' self-regulatory capacities, a predictor of educational attainment, and boost political tolerance. These findings provide preliminary evidence to suggest that religious-based education provides benefits that secularized equivalents cannot fully emulate.