The Cathoholic

D.C. Inner-City Catholic Schools--Bad News

Yesterday, the Archdiocese of Washington received some bad news that will increase the challenge of keeping its inner-city parochial schools open for business: the federally funded voucher program that pays for the tuitions of 1,700 D.C. students, the majority of whom are enrolled in archdiocesan schools, is in jeopardy. Here's a New York Times article that explains the unfolding scenario.  One point of contention: the NYT article cites a recent study, which concluded that there was no improvement in standardized test scores for students using vouchers at private/parochial schools. However, this study conducted by Georgetown University researchers suggests the actual impact of the voucher program is more complex.

Last year, Archbishop Wuerl initiated the process of "converting" a number of inner-city Catholic schools into publicly funded charter schools. Recently the Brooklyn Diocese followed Washington's lead. But it's doubtful that the D.C. public school system will encourage the archdiocese to repeat that process, and the church has already announced that its biggest donors can do no more. The voucher program wasn't ideal--public funds only covered the tuition, not the actual cost for educating the students. Still, the voucher program allowed many families the option of sending their children to "safe" schools with a solid religious environment. Now, many parents will be forced to send their children back to public school--like it or not. Time is running out for a real, substantive solution for securing inner-city Catholic schools. 

The Street Stops Here - Weekly Standard Review

Here is my latest book review entitled, "Motivation High."  I thoroughly enjoyed Patrick McCloskey's "The Street Stops Here: A Year at a Catholic High School in Harlem."  Anyone who cares about Catholic inner-city schools and their slow disappearance from communities that need them most will find this book of great interest. The most urgent issue that surfaces in this young author's portrait of a contemporary Catholic high school in Harlem is how to keep schools like Rice High School open. In my review, I make this conclusion:

"The Street Stops Here calls on Roman Catholic leaders, education reform groups, and large philanthropic institutions such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to coordinate a systemwide rescue/reinvention that would protect the legacy of Rice High School, and similar institutions, for generations to come." Please consider supporting your local Catholic school.

Brooklyn Diocese -- More Charter Schools?

Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that Mayer Bloomberg and the Brooklyn Diocese are negotiating on a plan to convert a handful of Brooklyn parochial schools into publicly funded charter schools.

Last year, I wrote  about the Archdiocese of Washington's controversial struggle to "save" seven of its inner-city parochial schools by converting them into charter schools. The Washington archdiocese sought to retain the staff, curriculum and basic moral values of the parochial schools in the conversion process. Let's hope that the Brooklyn Diocese will negotiate with the city to achieve a similar result. The Times story notes that one key stumbling block is the city's sex ed curriculum: Church officials do not want lessons that contradict Catholic teaching on sexuality morality and contraception taught in any schools it leases to the city.

While the city and the Brooklyn Diocese continue to work out the details of the plan, education reform expert, Diane Ravitch proposes in the New York Daily News  that Caroline Kennedy, who has raised over $200 million for the NYC's public schools, marshal her formidable fund raising talents to come to the aid of the collapsing Catholic system. Sounds like a good plan to me.

What Ravitch doesn't say in her Daily News commentary, but researchers have noted in the Winter 2009 issue of Education Next, an important education reform publication, is that the moderately-priced Catholic parochial system has provided much-needed competition for the public school system. Not only do the parochial schools provide an oasis for inner-city students, their educational outcomes (graduation rates, testing results) provide an essential point of comparison with the public system. The Education Next article looks at some fascinating attempts "to measure systematically the causal impact of [private-public] competition by looking at variation across countries." If you read the article, you may well conclude that if the parochial model loses further ground, the likely result will be a rapid decline in our overall educational outcomes.

Obama and Catholic schools

Obama and Catholic schools
I've already mentioned Patrick McCloskey's "The Street Stops Here: A Year at a Catholic High School in Harlem."  Here's Bill McGurn's piece about the book in the Wall Street Journal 
McGurn, a former Bush speech writer, notes that President Obama, who once attended Catholic school in Indonesia, is even better positioned to give struggling Catholic schools a "shot in the arm" than his predecessor. Writes McGurn:

"The elephant in the room of education reform is this: No matter how much a white Republican leader may be committed to inner-city school reform, support from a black Democrat will always have more of an impact.

This doesn't mean that Mr. Obama must embrace vouchers. Given the dynamic of his party, that would be expecting too much. And a president can't institute vouchers anyway, except in limited ways. However, simply by acknowledging Catholic schools as a national treasure that should be preserved, Mr. Obama would give them a badly needed shot in the arm."

In McGurn's view, a word of praise from Obama might help the Catholic bishops reaffirm their commitment to Catholic education, and encourage donors to fund struggling schools that boast an impressive legacy of educating and graduating inner-city students. Would the bishops listen to Obama? They have promised to collaborate on common goals, and this could be one of them--if only the teachers' unions would permit it.