8 D.C. Catholic Schools Eyed for Charters

[IrishAm]

8 D.C. Catholic Schools Eyed for Charters
Turning Over Operation to Secular Entity Proposed to Avert Closure

By Theola Labbe and Jacqueline L. Salmon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 8, 2007; A01

Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl is proposing to convert eight of the District’s 28 Catholic schools into secular charter schools, saying the archdiocese can no longer afford to keep them open.

Wuerl said his recommendation to strip the schools of their core religious identity and turn them over to a nonsectarian entity to be run as charter schools is the only way to avoid closing them and would continue the education of thousands of low-income city children without interruption.

The converted charter schools – elementary schools in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods – would receive operating and facilities funds from the District. They would remain in their buildings and pay rent to the parishes.
…

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/07/AR2007090702909.html

 

[dympnha]

Considering all the things the DC diocese wastes money on why they can’t keep schools for poor kids open is beyond me. How about closing down some of the suburban schools? Or better yet, how about not adding to Catholic University’s building fund and putting that towards the kids instead?

 

[Sr_Sally]

There probably is plenty of waste in the DC diocese budget–just like there is in any budget. But the issue here is the declining enrollment. I doubt there are too many donors willing to pony up the total tuition for a poor child (or family of children) to remain in school. If the parents of those children (many of them not Catholic) decide to move their children to a charter school which is free, it will only be an also free tuition at the Catholic school that will keep them their. The parents are sending their kids based on getting a better, more structured education than in offered at a regular DC public school. Yes, some of them care about the religious aspect, but not all and maybe even not a majority. So the parents are choosing among schools they think are well structured and academically oriented, if the charter school (which they view as being equal to the Catholic school) is free and the Catholic school requires some tuition, however subsidized the amount, guess which one they will pick?

I also grieve that these schools are very likely going to be turned over to the ‘state’. But I don’t blame it all on Archbishop Wuerl. When we don’t emphasis the importance of a CATHOLIC education, we are all helping a situation like this come about. And even though I live right outside DC, it never occurred to me to donate to the schools there. And even now that I know what might be forthcoming, I think I would rather support an order of teaching nuns who in the future could make Catholic schools more truly CATHOLIC and not just a good school.

 

[latin_rite]

Catholic schools in Australia are bulging at the moment. So much so that cardinal pell had to send out the message that non catholics be banned or not allowed" to enrol to make way for more catholic kids.

 

[brianjbyrne]

Vouchers for children’s education that recognize parental guardian authority over the education and spiritual and moral development of their children is what is called for in America. For too long fear of Catholic success in education has led to the secularization of schools that were once decidedly Protestant and government funded. But rather than allow Catholics to be subsudized in similar schools of their own choosing, allowing parents a free choice in education, the majority preferred removing God from the curriculum; limiting ‘public’ school to a deeply flawed, secular humanist model.

Poor populations with failing schools favor voucehers in any poll I’ve seen because vouchers actually provide for their need, which is a financial one: to escape these failing government institutions and to be empowered to exercise their own discretion as to the form and substance of the education of their children. That is true assistance, directly meeting the need.

Instead the government provides not aide for poor parents to exercise their own parental guardian authority in their child’s education, but instead imposes a compulsory system of education with a curriculum not at all times consistent with the parents’ will for their children. So what is done is the parents are treated like children such that decisions fully within their natural purview as parents are taken from them and made by the state in exchange for access to taxpayer funded schools.

For those not poor, this system of compulsory education is no real burden. They have school choice already. But for the poor in need of assistance to fulfill their obligation, what they get instead is a subjugation of their children.

Charter schools are a step in a better direction in terms of there being options, but the fundamental problem remains. Instead of eing assisted to fulfill their obligations a compulsory system is imposed upon them - unless they can somehow find a way to buy the freedom to leave it.

Pax et bonum

 

[HouseArrest]

Vouchers for children’s education that recognize parental guardian authority over the education and spiritual and moral development of their children is what is called for in America. For too long fear of Catholic success in education has led to the secularization of schools that were once decidedly Protestant and government funded. But rather than allow Catholics to be subsudized in similar schools of their own choosing, allowing parents a free choice in education, the majority preferred removing God from the curriculum; limiting ‘public’ school to a deeply flawed, secular humanist model.

Poor populations with failing schools favor voucehers in any poll I’ve seen because vouchers actually provide for their need, which is a financial one: to escape these failing government institutions and to be empowered to exercise their own discretion as to the form and substance of the education of their children. That is true assistance, directly meeting the need.

Instead the government provides not aide for poor parents to exercise their own parental guardian authority in their child’s education, but instead imposes a compulsory system of education with a curriculum not at all times consistent with the parents’ will for their children. So what is done is the parents are treated like children such that decisions fully within their natural purview as parents are taken from them and made by the state in exchange for access to taxpayer funded schools.

For those not poor, this system of compulsory education is no real burden. They have school choice already. But for the poor in need of assistance to fulfill their obligation, what they get instead is a subjugation of their children.

Charter schools are a step in a better direction in terms of there being options, but the fundamental problem remains. Instead of eing assisted to fulfill their obligations a compulsory system is imposed upon them - unless they can somehow find a way to buy the freedom to leave it.

Pax et bonum

Well put.