An Education Enlightenment

Just last week, citing a steady decline in enrollment, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced that this school year would be the last for two well-known and longstanding Catholic high schools — Cardinal Dougherty and North Catholic.

While many are quick to point the finger at charter schools as the reason for the dilemma facing inner-city Catholic schools, a recent story in Time Magazine featured a number of candid comments from leaders in Catholic education.

“The biggest threat that urban Catholic schools face is nostalgia,” said John Eriksen, the superintendent of catholic schools in Paterson, N.J. “We’ve been running these schools in a way that might have worked 30 or 40 years ago, but doesn’t work now.”

Said Rev. Timothy Scully, the founder of the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education, “We either re-invent ourselves or I don’t see how we don’t ultimately disappear from America’s inner cities. The model upon which we were founded was so different, both from a cost and supply side.”

A fellow at the Center for Education Reform, Samuel Casey Carter, added, “For more than 30 years, the Catholic Church has been supporting the public school system, educating children that many said were uneducable. When these schools are closing at 100 to 200 a year, no matter how small they are, that ends up putting a massive burden on an already burdened public school infrastructure.”

One result has been that formerly Catholic schools in Washington, D.C., and Miami, Fla., have converted to public charters and others are considering a similar route. And those committed to the continuation of Catholic education are shifting their approach to investors. Said Eriksen, “A much more effective mantra than, ‘We’re poor, give us money,’ is ‘We serve the poor, invest in us and we’ll provide a good return on your investment.’”