I admire Catholic schools. I like the moral and ethical basis of their teachings, rooted in faith.
I admire our nation’s public schools, which enroll nearly 90% of our children. They teach not only academic skills but citizenship and tolerance, the arts of living with those who are different from oneself.
I believe in the separation of church and state. Those who seek a religious education should pay for it. Religious schools should be funded by philanthropists like Gates and Walton, not taxpayers.
Charter schools are killing off Catholic schools by competing with them but requiring no tuition. This is not fair. Charters compete by pretending that. “No excuses” makes them like Carholic schools. Wrong. Catholic schools succeed because they are faith-based.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am a retired teacher in Rochester, New York. I know a wonderful teacher who has written a book and is amazing with her students. If you are interested in this you can email me at infin17@frontier.com Judi Flanders 585-377-2125 I am a member of CJE in Rochester..
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“Catholic schools succeed because they are faith-based.”
I don’t know about that. Those “Christian” schools that pack kids in the auditorium watching creationist videos all day are faith-based too, but they’re not exactly succeeding. I think Catholic schools succeed for the same reasons that public schools do – they truly care about good, well-rounded education and they’ve had a long time to figure out what works, what doesn’t and why.
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And to continue the thought, I think Catholic schools also realize they are educating tomorrow’s potential leaders – both within the Church and in society as a whole. These “no excuses” chain charter schools seem to see their mission more as educating tomorrow’s workers, but not so much tomorrow’s leaders.
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Catholic schools succeed by picking their students and having parents with a significant stake in the learning process. The threat of being expelled even for grades can be a powerful motivation.
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Yes, there are some schools in my Archdiocese that do this, but not all. The Catholic school where I teach–in an inner city area of my city– accepts anyone unless the class is full. Very, very rarely is a student asked to withdraw from my school, but the few times that has happened in the now 13 years I’ve been at this school, the child would likely have been required to attend the system’s alternative school had he/she been in a public school and done what they did at my school.
(By the way, I don’t mean anything against those few children; just hope they got the help they needed.)
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Yes, catholic schools come from a place of good intentions for ALL children…charters come from a place of greed, religious charter schools often come from a place of ignorance and intolerance and fear of the unfamiliar…
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TCliff,
I think this statement is far to broad. Do you think the Montessori charter schools come from a place of greed? The Waldorf charter schools? As a more concrete example, how bout the Walton Rural Life Center charter school? Here is a video about Walton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQT2uwDXcF0
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Right. No public funds whatsoever should be provided to any faith-based schools. No taxpayer should be compelled to support any faith-based institution, his/her own or anyone else’s.
I am an honors grad of Indiana’s leading Catholic high school. It is thriving with private funding.
Further, Catholic schools, like the vast majority of faith-based schools, are selective in various ways, unlike public schools. I spelled this out in my 2000 book Catholic Schools: The Facts (Americans for Religious Liberty), which draws mainly on data from the National Catholic Educational Association and other Catholic sources.
Edd Doerr (arlinc@verizon.net; arlinc.org)
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Anyone who pays taxes is compelled to support a whole bunch of faith-based institutions by offsetting the revenue lost to religious exemptions. I’ve seen estimates that this amounts to as much as $85 billion in lost local, state, and Federal revenue every year. I understand the legal and philosophical reasoning behind the exemption, but let’s not pretend that it’s free.
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Tim, I am not bothered by tax exemptions for religious institutions. I am very bothered by taxpayer money going to religious schools to propagate my faith or yours.
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I admire the way Catholic schools teach children complete lies starting in pre-kindergarten.
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FLERP, disagree. I am Jewish. Many accomplished friends are graduates of Catholic schools. Their religious faith informs their lives.
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I’m Catholic, and I probably have fewer accomplished friends than you do 😉
To be clear, I don’t think that having been taught a pack of lies, or even believing it, precludes accomplishment. But I do think it’s antithetical to the notions of reason and education, and at least as abusive to children as standardized tests or the Common Core.
What led you to change your views about church-state separation over the years?
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FLERP, I have always believed in the separation of church and state. I don’t want the state to subsidize my religion or anyone else’s.
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I was thinking about your past support for vouchers for Catholic schools.
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As a Catholic teacher, my main objective with the children is for them to treat each other with kindness by using Jesus as an example of what ultimate love is… the sacrifice of oneself for another. Does that make me a liar?
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“It’s not a lie if you believe it.”
— George Costanza
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Absolutely not, Catholic schools do not teach lies. Everything that is taught follows moral doctrine that’s been around for thousands of years. They educate the whole child. Their aims are first to God, then family and then country. Unfortunately, that is not where the moral compass is going in this country. It’s all about me, me, me and how dependent can I become on the government to take care of me. That’s the LAST thing I would want for my children. The morality in this country has taken a drastic change for the worse. Catholic schools teach their students moral leadership and not dependence on government.
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Coming from a long line if Irish-Italian-Orthodox Catholics, most who attended or taught in Catholic schools and a few relatives as priests, I am familiar with doctrine. But as doctrine changes, so too should Catholics. The diocese in Ohio have written selected doctrine into a teacher’s contract plus skirted civil laws calling teachers “ministers”. Teachers must either lie or quit under strict interpretations of such issues as cohabitation, fertility, birth control, gay children. The Catholic schools are to be admired in many ways, but exclusion is not one of them.
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That’s the moral and spiritual grounding that makes Catholic schools succeed.
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I can’t wait till they put a metric on moral OR spiritual grounding. We could correlate to all kinds of things. Or will an Office of Religious Accountability be the next idea?
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MathVale,
If individuals were assigned to a particular church by the government, the government might well feel the need to ensure some standard of religious accountability.
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“Absolutely not, Catholic schools do not teach lies.”
Virgin birth anyone?????
Mary, physically ascending into heaven????
Jesus coming back from the dead????
Transfiguration?????
Okay so they teach myths!
Lies disguised as myths that is!
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Obviously, Duane, you don’t believe in the Bible. Christian doctrine is based on the Bible, and if you don’t believe it, that’s your choice. You don’t have to attack or criticize Catholics or other Christians for their beliefs.
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Anne,
I didn’t attack anyone, just your statement that the Catholic Church doesn’t teach lies. By any definition of the term lie, the things I mentioned have to be classified as such. Beliefs or not they are still lies.
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That’s the nature of these kinds of lies. Attacking the idea is seen as a personal attack.
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Catholic schools educate children through religious and moral training. As a ESL teacher in a public school, I sometimes screened students at the local Catholic school as per NYS law. It’s was the first time someone said, “Bless you,” when I returned a child to class. I was impressed by their clean, well ordered, quiet building. A couple of years later, the Catholic school was closed, and we absorbed many of their students. What we found is that many of the children were a year or two behind in reading and math. Parents were outraged because many of these children were on the honor roll. I guess what I am saying is that without oversight, non-public schools, whether religious, charter or home school, can create a parallel academic universe, and you as a parent may not understand this, until your child is compared to the norm. I am sure there are many excellent private schools, but, as a consumer, beware.
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Retired,
I suspect there are many parallel academic universes, certainly between states and likely between districts.
In a thread not long ago I asked if high school graduates are well prepared to be incoming freshman in well thought of traditional public schools like New Trier High School in Illinois, and the consensus of the posters who responded was that many high school graduates would not be prepared to be high school freshman in those high schools.
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No, but then no one is stepping up and offering to give other people’s children the kind of resources that are typically lavished on children in the North Shore suburbs: developmental, play-based preschools; progressive elementary schools that engage children in a lot of problem-solving, project work, and democratic decision-making; after-school activities; art, music, world languages, and sports; safe neighborhoods that promote outdoor play and socializing with peers; health care and dental care as needed; good management of chronic health conditions; good nutrition and adequate sleep; plus years spent with experienced teachers, counselors, and principals (all of whom are given excellent working conditions, with beautiful schools and small class sizes). By the time they reach New Trier, they have been given a great deal of support in reaching their academic, artistic, athletic, and leadership potential.
There is not some kind of natural law that dictates this distribution of resources. In another post, Dr. Ravitch linked to Robert Reich’s piece, which points out that the vast majority of OECD nations invest as much or more in the education of the poor as in the education of the rich. We do it differently here. Before we conclude that schools for non-rich children are staffed by lazy people with low standards and/or little knowledge about teaching, we should consider that we are unlikely to get even roughly equal educational outcomes as long our systems of schooling and care for children remain inequitable by design.
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I have always wondered why the Catholic dioceses in this country have not done more to fight the charter school lobby. My guess is that charter schools have contributed significantly to the decreased enrollment in urban Catholic schools. I have dreamed of a “Nuns on the Bus” -type campaign about public education; I think the cause is just right.
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Karen, I have published research from NY showing that when charters open, Catholic schools close. The charters are “free,” the Catholic schools are not. The charters claim to be Catholic-like, but they lack the moral and spiritual grounding that makes Catholic schools succeed.
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KW, In northern NJ, both urban & suburban Catholic schools have been affected by changing demographics. Families with Indian or Arabic heritage were less likely to enroll–although many NJ Catholic schools accept children of other faiths.
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Not a fan of Catholic Schools, based on experience, physical, emotional and verbal abuse for years as a young child. I’m a good person who seeks knowledge and considers self to be highly educated; however I don’t attribute any of it to that school. Much of how I was taught reminds me of what reformers want, uniforms, choral responses, shame, lots of labeling, regurgitation, memorization.Luckily I was pulled out in 6th grade and luckily sent to a public school. I work in a public elementary school now, where my kids also attend and it is just how a public school should be. I wish all public schools could follow its model. It so refreshing!! Students there are thinkers not robots like my elementary school wanted me to be!
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Let’s be serious and straight forward for a moment, if you please. No form of education, public or otherwise, is perfect, let alone being suitable nowadays. I entered Catholic school for pre-school, and I left when I graduated from a Jesuit university on the east side of Cleveland for my undergrad degree. I was always grateful for the sacrifices my parents made sending me, the youngest of eight, to parochial school. Religion, regardless of which of the big three you have your personal faith in, is history. It is history and culture of a people. While I was in high school, I learned abouth Judaism and Islam. We had numerous projects that integrated us into these religious cultures. In university, the same was true, but more so. At the same time, my oldest brother was doing academic research and discovering that our maternal grandmother was Jewish, and converted to Catholicism before marrying our grandfather. We are mutts. Irish/German/Russian Catholic/Jewish mutts. And frankly, we are proud of who we are. I am proud of my education. I am proud of my academic background.
I have only attended “public” education once. That was when I earned my MPA at a public university in downtown Cleveland. My academic experience is overwhelmingly private.
Today, I am a public middle school educator. I do not stop a child from praying in my classroom. If a child inquires about other faiths, we have an open forum discussion. I do not want my students to be afraid of other cultures and I want to correct the fallacies mainstream media portrays. Not every Catholic sister or priest is an abuser. Not every Muslim is a terrorist.
It is our responsibility, as educators, to teach civility to humanity, beginning with the children. That’s just common sense. I don’t think I learned that in Catholic school, but hey, maybe I did. I bet I would have had some hippie Buddist practicing teacher tell me the same thing had I gone to public school. Never can tell….
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My experience was pretty serious and straightforward; didn’t make it right.
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As a Catholic school teacher, I enjoy being in a school where I can teach my faith, but certainly understand why I couldn’t do so in a public school. I attended a Montessori School for a while and then attended public schools through graduation. I truly believe that I received a good education. When I finished my undergraduate degree, I applied in my county’s public school system, the Archdiocese and a couple of private schools in my city. I took the first job offer that came my way; in a Catholic School. Tenure is non-existent in my system, but especially my first few years of teaching, my job was safer than that of my friends who waited until school had started and finally got jobs in the public schools. I am glad that as of now, Alabama does not allow for Charter Schools, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that changed during the next legislative session. I do not approve of either Alabama’s Accountability Act that allows for Scholarships or the way in which it was passed. I think that my county’s public schools are as good as the schools in my Archdiocese. All that is doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul. It troubles me that the Archdiocese adopted the math and ELA CC Standards, no questions asked; yes I am aware that Gates donated to the National Catholic Education Association. Being an inner city school, my school has many of the same issues that the near by public school has.
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Ala Teacher, If your state legislature starts considering charter schools, become an advocate. Read Jersey Jazzman and School Finance 101 blogs now. In addition to all that Dr Ravitch’s commenters share. Than get all the smart folks you know on board.
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You can’t judge an entire school system by one school or district- public or Catholic. The one universal of the Catholic school system is that they all teach morals, values, and Doctrine besides the academics. The public schools teach academics. Most parochial and public have a sports program, besides gym class, teach music and art. From my experience, the teachers – both in the public and the parochial school system- create the morale and then the principal. In every institution you will find people who do not meet everyone’s expectations. You can’t characterize the entire institution by one person or one school. Also, teachers do not choose their students. Some children and their parents are nightmares and the teacher has to cope the best he/she can. My boys were a nightmare. My oldest – a gifted child- wouldn’t stay in either the parochial or public school so he had to be home schooled in the grades. He returned when he entered a Catholic high school. The only reason he remained in the school is because two teachers and the principal took a personal interest in him and gave him encouragement and support with their positive comments. My second boy was a thorn in his teachers’ sides because in hind sight we realized that he was hyper active. That was due primarily because of the GMO foods I served in ignorance. He was expelled from the first Catholic school and later dropped out of the second Catholic school. When he discovered that working at McDonald’s wasn’t going to satisfy his
wants he went back for his GED and eventually graduated from college with a business degree.
Bravo, Anne! As you said, morality in this country has taken a drastic change for the worse. My daughter who teaches at a university can’t help but admire her Saudi students with their deep moral and religious beliefs. Our children need a religious education – a reason for being.
By chance I happened to read an article about a young man who received strength in his Faith.
“Rwanda genocide survivor finds forgiveness.”
http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/rwanda-genocide-survivor-finds-forgiveness
The report revolves around a young man who learned forgiveness via his Faith. His Faith gave him the strength to forget about himself and reach out to others.
MathVale- elementary Catholic schools do not pick their students; students pick the school. In the Catholic high schools that is not the case. Because of limited funds and space, the enrollment has to be limited. Depending upon the location, Catholic high schools select students by of their grades. In rural areas all are accepted who want to attend. Two of my grandchildren asked their parents if they could attend a Catholic school after all their years in public schools. One switched over as a freshman in high school and the other as an eighth grader. The oldest one wanted to learn more about his Faith. The second one wanted to become more serious about his school work and felt the teachers had him pegged as a clown and a trouble maker. Thank Goodness there was an option for them.
Correction, Matt: doctrine does not and has not changed. Only rituals and directives have changed. A great misunderstanding on your part to say that the diocese in Ohio have written selected doctrine into a teacher’s contract…”cohabitation, fertility, birth control, gay children…” That is not doctrine. Those are positions the Church has taken due their interpretation of the Bible and the teaching of the Church through history. The Church has always maintained that people must follow their informed conscience. There are very few doctrines that must be believe if we want to be Catholic. The basic ones are: the Trinity, Incarnation, Redemption, Resurrection and Ascension.
Matt, I don’t agree with the second part of your statement, “The Catholic schools are to be admired in many ways, but exclusion is not one of them.” My oldest son attended a Catholic high school that accepted all creeds and nationalities. A Sikh was allowed to wear his turban and dagger because that was his religious belief. My son’s “click” was comprised of a mini UN. I agree that it is a problem when a student wants to attend a Catholic high school but is denied entrance due to grades.
Diane, you said, “Charter schools are killing off Catholic schools by competing with them but requiring no tuition.” There are two main reasons why Catholic schools are closing: people don’t have the Faith that once was a driving force and those who have the Faith don’t have the money to send their children to parochial school. Some people end up home schooling to pass on their Faith as friends of ours are doing in Maryland.
FLERP! says: “I admire the way Catholic schools teach children complete lies starting in pre-kindergarten.” Wow! You are Catholic in name only.
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Duane, you can not prove they are lies, but Christians can prove they are not lies based on the Bible. And, the Bible is infallible.
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Agree! Not to mention Charter schools over all do not produce the results Catholic schools do.
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I find “No Excuses” to be a code word for selective enrollment. If families at schools like Success Academy want selective enrollment akin to a Catholic school, they should pay for it, as they would have a Catholic school.
Another concern with the closure of Catholic schools is what happens once this current favorable trend towards charter schools ends. Not all charter schools will survive. Where will these children go to school, if the Catholic schools families previously relied on are no longer available?
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Anecdotal reports in NJ say that charter school students return to public schools AFTER the state funding date if “they are not a good fit,” so it’s very possible public school is the answer to your question.
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Yes, i went on a catholic scholl in Germany, in a region so called “Westerwald”. My brothers and sisters got the double dose of Catholic, because my mother came from a family of ore catholics, but my father was Protestant. Where love strikes. Everyone in our parish community feared to our salvation.
But, unfortunately, I do not know how this is handled in the United States. With us on the school they tried us science as God’s miracle to explain, that would have to identify the people and learn. This was to fulfill “his” will as a faithful servant. The Bible is not taken literally but as a true analogy. So for all we know, for example, the creation in the order is expired as it is in the Bible.
By the way, my class teacher was awarded the “order of Sylvester” from the pope last year.
Most people wonder that we so sober and scientific thinking people, but are still a believer. For many this is a contradiction, but not required to be from my view and the view of approximately 700 children.
Translate thanking using Bing translator.
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