Nowadays, why would anyone want to send their children to a Catholic School?

[z_0101]

Well, good for you, all the people who still have parish schools. Many of us have Regional schools, which are run by a Superintendent, the pastors have NO say in the running of the schools, and there are no chaplains. I was the DRE at one of these schools and taught religion classes to kids who were thirsty for the faith. Then, the principal decided that I was “too religious”. She cut my hours and forced me out…no bad performance review, no complaints…and put in place a man with no experience, and began instructing the teachers to have the kids read the textbooks silently, and simply outline the chapters and call it done. No offending the non-Catholic people, no talk about morality, or sin, or Saints, or Mass. I used to take a poll on Mondays…what was the Gospel about? Or the homily, even. Never had more than 2 or 3 kids even went to church…even other churches.
All of you who have legitimate Catholic schools…with real teachers that make a living wage, with priests on the Board of Directors, and people who will listen…
Get on your knees and thank God. Some people have none of it. And pay a hefty price.
They populate these places because of the “good old days” and fear of the public school system.

• Thank yes, we’re blessed.
• Why wasn’t a complaint filed with the chancery office.
  IFAIK: All Catholic schools have a parish administrator assigned. The Parish to which the school belongs to is assessed a very heavy tax by the Diocese (I know this for a fact, I am on the Parish Council and involved with our Finance over site board and we have the regional high school, an elementary, and a preschool - taxed for each one by the archdiocese); thus, they have a Pastor and/or Chaplin assigned to the school - just to prevent such dilutions of the faith. Just because they told you at the school there was/is no control at the parish level didn’t make it true.
• Yes our high school is ran by a Superintendent hired jointly there are three feeder parishes to the high school, (as a courtesy to the other three parishes - our pastor could simply do this by his on hand), guess what, the superintendent was shocked when the new Pastor arrived and asked for all of the books for the entire parish school system so that they could be audited and the property accounted for… The Superintendent didn’t didn’t think they answered directly to the Pastor of the Parish where the school is located, the Bishop took care of that minor misunderstanding.
• DRE… Director of Religious Education, usually under the employee of either the Parish or the Diocese from what I have seen here in the Archdiocese, and the two other diocese in the state. All of our DRE report to their regional DRE that is employed by and works for the Bishop… at least in the three diocese that are in my state… how do I know this… because I am close friends with the regional DRE that oversees the the three local parishes and several others around the local area.
  – What I am getting at is that I suspect that you may not have been aware of the chain of command, or that your position really wasn’t the DRE for the parish where the school resided. Our DRE doesn’t answer to the school, she works for the parish and her office is in the rectory. She is hired by the Pastor and he asks for the Parish Council to provide feed back about her performance within the parish.
  In summary, as the DRE you have/had a responsibility to the children, the parents, the parish, and the Church to let them know what was happening.
• You should have filed a complaint with the school board, then the Chancery Office (and I only omit the steps for the parish council, regional DRE, and the Pastor because it appears you did not have that information, the Chancery Office would have provided those contacts when you filed the complaint.)

 

[TK421]

I’m working in a Catholic school right now. The benefits are:

• Instruction in the faith / Catholic environment
• Smaller classrooms
• Higher standards (language, bullying, personal mentoring)

Catholic schools turnover better academic records than public schools.

It’s still not as foolproof as homeschooling, but homeschooling is an even more enormous investment than sending a child to a private school. The shortness is that some of the staff may be hooked, lined, and sunk by the postmodernist spirit of inclusiveness and no-judgements. The catechizing could be moderately to severely wanting. Needless to say, even if you send your kid to a Catholic school, the foundation of their faith should always be laid in the hearth under the mother & father.

 

[z_0101]

I’m working in a Catholic school right now. The benefits are:

• Instruction in the faith / Catholic environment
• Smaller classrooms
• Higher standards (language, bullying, personal mentoring)

Catholic schools turnover better academic records than public schools.

It’s still not as foolproof as homeschooling, but homeschooling is an even more enormous investment than sending a child to a private school. The shortness is that you’re still more likely to run into compromised theology in a Catholic school than under your own roof.

Even homeschooling isn’t fool proof… I applaud parents that take on the task; however, as a mentor at my University for incoming freshman, the home school group ran the gambit from Wow, very impressive and well rounded to the socially naive and scared out of their minds, finally to the ones that simply went off the reservation because there was nothing the parents could do.

• The first group… the well rounded ones… tended to be in the Home School programs that had a round robin type approach among many families and even occasionally had access to the sports, science, and art programs thru either the public schools, private schools, the community college or local university - kind of a hybrid approach. I worked with one such group that contacted the university about a chemistry tutor and access to a lab when they hit that section of the high school level curriculum… I had a really nice group of young kids for one day a week in my teaching lab - really good group of kids, I’m sure the families paid a small ransom to use the lab and for my time - but we had fun and they learned some freshman level lab techniques that I hope stuck with them when they entered university…

 

[on_the_hill]

Oh, so now I’m a hater for stating the stark reality.
…
Maybe you disagree with my decisions or rationale, but that’s hardly an excuse for name calling.

I was referring to this phrase:

Only the rich, poor, and birth controllers

A bit too much to refer to people as birth controllers, but it would derail the thread to get into that debate.

 

[Gorgias]

If the latter was for me, thanks, but no thanks. I was actually more along the lines of talking about how Catholic Education can be improved for the better.

Nope, not for you, but for the person who made the outlandish claim.

 

[TARRAT]

How exactly is the American Catholic School System a part of the Government?

It is not. But if you don’t send you child to a Catholic school the other choice is public school which is really only a government indoctrination center which totally leaves God our of all equations.

 

[Discerning13]

:doh2:

Riiiiiiight. I’m thinking that, if you go to just about any parish, and look at the folks who are active in that parish, you’re going to find quite a few who are the beneficiaries of a Catholic school education.

Nice try, though.

Oh… and my condolences that your Catholic school education wasn’t all you might have hoped it would be. (That doesn’t mean that it extrapolates to everyone, though.)

Just look at the TV when they have a report about Catholic Schools, they also look quite similar.

“Homosexual teacher fired”

“Students and parents outraged”

*protest in support of sodomy"

Bishop: “Oh well…The people know what’s best anyways…right?”

 

[pianistclare]

• Thank yes, we’re blessed.
• Why wasn’t a complaint filed with the chancery office.
  IFAIK: All Catholic schools have a parish administrator assigned. The Parish to which the school belongs to is assessed a very heavy tax by the Diocese (I know this for a fact, I am on the Parish Council and involved with our Finance over site board and we have the regional high school, an elementary, and a preschool - taxed for each one by the archdiocese); thus, they have a Pastor and/or Chaplin assigned to the school - just to prevent such dilutions of the faith. Just because they told you at the school there was/is no control at the parish level didn’t make it true.
• Yes our high school is ran by a Superintendent hired jointly there are three feeder parishes to the high school, (as a courtesy to the other three parishes - our pastor could simply do this by his on hand), guess what, the superintendent was shocked when the new Pastor arrived and asked for all of the books for the entire parish school system so that they could be audited and the property accounted for… The Superintendent didn’t didn’t think they answered directly to the Pastor of the Parish where the school is located, the Bishop took care of that minor misunderstanding.
• DRE… Director of Religious Education, usually under the employee of either the Parish or the Diocese from what I have seen here in the Archdiocese, and the two other diocese in the state. All of our DRE report to their regional DRE that is employed by and works for the Bishop… at least in the three diocese that are in my state… how do I know this… because I am close friends with the regional DRE that oversees the the three local parishes and several others around the local area.
  – What I am getting at is that I suspect that you may not have been aware of the chain of command, or that your position really wasn’t the DRE for the parish where the school resided. Our DRE doesn’t answer to the school, she works for the parish and her office is in the rectory. She is hired by the Pastor and he asks for the Parish Council to provide feed back about her performance within the parish.
  In summary, as the DRE you have/had a responsibility to the children, the parents, the parish, and the Church to let them know what was happening.
• You should have filed a complaint with the school board, then the Chancery Office (and I only omit the steps for the parish council, regional DRE, and the Pastor because it appears you did not have that information, the Chancery Office would have provided those contacts when you filed the complaint.)

HUNDREDS of complaints. Honest. Hundreds. Over several years. I have plenty of info.
I’ve worked in the Diocese for a long time., Everybody knows me. The superintendent has the last word. Period. “Not aware of the chain of command”. Are you kidding me?
Sorry, but this has been a nightmare for families and employees both.
Trust me…I am not the only person that this happened to. In the last 5 years 36 people have been unjustly pushed out. I kid you not. One sued. Settlement may not be discussed.
Nobody cares. It’s hard for people who have wonderful situations to understand, I know. I’m not blaming you, but it’s just hopeless in our case.

 

[Usige]

WOW
Over all:
usccb.org/about/media-relations/statistics/catholic-education.cfmTuition fees paid by families constitute a portion of the actual per pupil expenses.19
The average per pupil tuition in parish elementary schools is $3,673, which is approximately 62.2% of actual costs per pupil of $5,387. 20
About 93.9% of elementary schools provide some form of tuition assistance. 21
The secondary school mean freshman tuition is $8,182, which is approximately 80% of actual costs per pupil of $10,228. 22and where I would have thought the higher bills are:
sfdcs.org/dcs/mythbusting
]Catholic schools welcome all families regardless of economic status. The average cost to educate a student in a Catholic school is between $6,000-$8,000. The cost to educate a student in the public school is between $10,000-$14,000. Private school tuition ranges between $15,000-$25,000. Catholic education has a success rate of 89%-100% for graduation and college acceptance and does so at a fraction of the cost of both private and public schools. Many Catholic schools offer tuition assistance through 3rd party foundations or through Diocesan grants.We pay towards that lower end here, what your talking about for one year would put all four of my kids thru from K thru 6 and we also accommodate so called “special needs” kids. Our high school just graduated one such young lady… took a lot of time and talent from parents thru teachers… but they did it and as a Parish, we’re all very proud of her… you should have seen the graduation party… people were bringing food because the parents didn’t anticipate having almost the entire Parish show up at their home! (Just a few phone calls, can you bring… 300 people showed up… great, call two more and have them bring something too) Great Catholic family in our church.

I’m glad that their are some schools out there that see that all Catholic children should have the opportunity for a catholic education, regardless of a child God given ability.

I think it really depends on what the focus of the school is. Most Catholic schools in my area “sell” themselves on their high academic achievement. Their marketing materials almost always focus principally on the numbers that go on to a university. They put themselves forward as something like a prep school. It then implies that Catholic education is not useful to person that want to go into skilled trades or blue collar occupations. The handful of elementary schools I am personally aware of all have academic entrance exams. Students that cannot meet the academic requirements will not be admitted. Here is the general order of acceptance criteria from most important to least important:

1. 
   *]Pass academic entrance exam (this included kids going into kindergarten)
   *]Parents can afford tuition or obtain a loan
   *]Students are Catholic
   
   Most parents in the Catholic schools around here put a primary focus on academic achievement first and foremost. The Catholic portion of the education is considered secondary. I laugh when people pay 5k+ to send their kids to the closest parish elementary school since they just switched to a common core curriculum. Not sure how to equate common core with high academic achievement.

 

[LongingSoul]

Oh the only people who can afford it are the rich, poor, liars, and birth controllers. Faithful, hard-working, middle class Catholics need not apply.

You betray yourself as a certain type of person who feels they are better than everyone else. Many good, faithful, hard-working, middle class Catholics do use Catholic schools. Many negotiate quarterly on fees. Many travel miles to get to schools with cheaper fees. Many use the good old can-do attitude that God loves.

You feel you don’t have an option. OK. But to claim there are no other faithful, hard-working , middle class Catholics at Catholic schools is insulting and a lie. You should be ashamed of your attitude.

 

[white_sheep]

I was referring to this phrase:

A bit too much to refer to people as birth controllers, but it would derail the thread to get into that debate.

Oh, sorry. What post-modern, politically correct, public school approved phrase should I use to refer to them instead?

 

[white_sheep]

You betray yourself as a certain type of person who feels they are better than everyone else. Many good, faithful, hard-working, middle class Catholics do use Catholic schools. Many negotiate quarterly on fees. Many travel miles to get to schools with cheaper fees. Many use the good old can-do attitude that God loves.

You feel you don’t have an option. OK. But to claim there are no other faithful, hard-working , middle class Catholics at Catholic schools is insulting and a lie. You should be ashamed of your attitude.

When did I say I am better than everyone else? When did I say that there is absolutley no faithful, middle class Catholic family anywhere in the universe that sends their children to Catholic school?

There are tons of middle class Catholics who put the money in the basket every Sunday to keep the church doors open and pay for the poor kids to go to Catholic school while they can’t afford to send their own kids there. That doesn’t make me better than anyone, or hate anyone. I just do what I am supposed to do, which is support the church and they manage the money the way they think they should. They think it is important that the poor kids go to the parish school but that mine don’t need to. That’s fine, we’ll manage. No biggie. I am not second guessing the parish decisions, that’s their responsibility.

 

[LongingSoul]

When did I say I am better than everyone else? When did I say that there is absolutley no faithful, middle class Catholic family anywhere in the universe that sends their children to Catholic school?

There are tons of middle class Catholics who put the money in the basket every Sunday to keep the church doors open and pay for the poor kids to go to Catholic school while they can’t afford to send their own kids there. That doesn’t make me better than anyone, or hate anyone. I just do what I am supposed to do, which is support the church and they manage the money the way they think they should. They think it is important that the poor kids go to the parish school but that mine don’t need to. That’s fine, we’ll manage. No biggie. I am not second guessing the parish decisions, that’s their responsibility.

Don’t put ‘money in the basket’ if you feel that way. That’s not the ‘spirit’ of giving that Christ would want anyway. My last finished highschool at the end of 2012. We went into hock to put ours through. We arranged redraw on our home loan to do it. It’ll be years before we are really actually done with paying for their education. Loads of people who are faithful, middle class, plate contributors, do what they have to do without spewing on the Catholic Church about it all. It just is what it is. If the Church conceded to taking full government funding in order to provide free education, you’d see the complete disappearance of the Catholic spirit in schools.

It’s a shame you give your mass contribution with such bitterness attached to it.

 

[white_sheep]

Don’t put ‘money in the basket’ if you feel that way. That’s not the ‘spirit’ of giving that Christ would want anyway. My last finished highschool at the end of 2012. We went into hock to put ours through. We arranged redraw on our home loan to do it. It’ll be years before we are really actually done with paying for their education. Loads of people who are faithful, middle class, plate contributors, do what they have to do without spewing on the Catholic Church about it all. It just is what it is. If the Church conceded to taking full government funding in order to provide free education, you’d see the complete disappearance of the Catholic spirit in schools.

It’s a shame you give your mass contribution with such bitterness attached to it.

I don’t feel any way about it. Nor do I have any bitterness. As I already stated. Further, I find it abhorently modernistic and pc to claim that while I stated I do not believe it is my job to judge the pastor’s decisions in his stewardship of the resources at his disposal, that such is exactly what I should do, and if I disagree then I am absolved of the precept to support the Church.

 

[LongingSoul]

I don’t feel any way about it. Nor do I have any bitterness. As I already stated. Further, I find it abhorently modernistic and pc to claim that while I stated I do not believe it is my job to judge the pastor’s decisions in his stewardship of the resources at his disposal, that such is exactly what I should do, and if I disagree then I am absolved of the precept to support the Church.

Why on earth would you want to support a Church who “think it is important that the poor kids go to the parish school but that mine don’t need to.”? Of course you are absolved of the obligation! Give your money directly to the faithful, middle class families in your parish. Alternately, I’ll send you my bank details and you can give it towards my loans spent on the kids education. That will cover your obligation!

 

[white_sheep]

What I want is irrelevant. Hopefully, what I want is to serve God and do his will. When that isn’t the case I can at least muster the will to keep my mouth shut about it, do what I am supposed to do, which is obey the precepts of the Church, and with the grace of God reform myself so that I want the right things.

And why were you going on about free Catholic schooling? I never said I advocated for that or accepting government money. What I do like is the idea of stewardship in place in the diocese of Wichita. I would have considered moving there had I known about it sooner. Catholics there are expected to tithe 8% and everyone’s kids can go to Catholic school.

 

[savedbygrace71]

There are tons of middle class Catholics who put the money in the basket every Sunday to keep the church doors open and pay for the poor kids to go to Catholic school while they can’t afford to send their own kids there.

I am not sure that this is exactly what is happening. It’s definitely not what’s happening in our parish. We are a middle class family who attends Mass each week, contributes each week, and is therefore eligible for Catholic tuition rates. Basically, the amount we contribute in monetary and voluntary donations is close or more than to what we are being subsidized by the parish. Meanwhile we continue to pay our monthly tuition bills.

There are other scholarships, however, they are separately funded with named sources. They don’t come from weekly donations. Normally the budget is available for review each year- I’m sure you can see exactly how much of the collections is being used for tuition payments as a percentage.

I understand things vary parish to parish. But our family is neither rich, poor, lying, or using birth control. Just saying.

 

[z_0101]

I laugh when people pay 5k+ to send their kids to the closest parish elementary school since they just switched to a common core curriculum. Not sure how to equate common core with high academic achievement.

Common Core… sigh… might as well send the kids to public school as far as the academic standard goes… but that’s another thread.

 

[marymary1975]

I’m working in a Catholic school right now. The benefits are:

• Instruction in the faith / Catholic environment
• Smaller classrooms
• Higher standards (language, bullying, personal mentoring)

Catholic schools turnover better academic records than public schools.

It’s still not as foolproof as homeschooling, but homeschooling is an even more enormous investment than sending a child to a private school. The shortness is that some of the staff may be hooked, lined, and sunk by the postmodernist spirit of inclusiveness and no-judgements. The catechizing could be moderately to severely wanting. Needless to say, even if you send your kid to a Catholic school, the foundation of their faith should always be laid in the hearth under the mother & father.

I absolutely agree with this. My daughter currently goes to a private catholic school. She also attended between kindergarten and second grade to public school and she switched in the middle of third to private catholic. From an educational standpoint I can say that my current private school is more advanced than public schools in my area. I am in MA and at least here public schools are only focus onto scoring high on the MCASt. Hence the entire year was only on taking the MCAST. When she switched to private catholic.she was quite behind. She struggled in the beginning because she was behind on math and reading. Now comparing her to my nieces in publish school I can say that public schools in my area are behind.

As to switching to common core curriculum I don’t know. I just know that public school here still takes the MCAST and that the entire curriculum is MCAST focused. Private schools do not take the MCASt which makes a radical difference so I don’t know how a private school is going to follow a curriculum based on a test they don’t test. Personally in my daughter’s case. They may follow the basic curriculum of the state but they do go beyond that as they don’t have to worry about MCASt.

As to economically speaking at least elementary school in my case is not that expensive. Now high schools are ridiculously expensive but for elementary school I only pay $450 a month plus $150 for before/after school and that is it. When my daughter was at public school between transportation charge, before/after school, books, meals which was mandated to pay I was paying about $900. Kindrgarden was also not free, you had to get income qualified to get it for free. (Also transportation, meals and books was free only under an income scale). Because according to them I made too much I had to pay for those and it was ridiculously expensive. I also had to pay other schools expenses so sincerely I never understood how it was “free” because with the expenses surrounding the school itself private school is much cheaper than public school.

Now high schools are indeed expensive, but there are quite good scholarships.

 

[alexandratm]

I have a slightly different perspective. I grew up in a suburban area with nationally-ranked public schools. We had a lot of resources, and were educated very well - and from what I can tell, the education continues to be very good.

The local Catholic schools are outrageously priced. The classrooms are more crowded, and the education is sub-par academically when compared to the public schools. The teachers are paid a pittance, and because of the low pay, the school has a hard time holding on to good teachers. When you’re already paying taxes for a good public school, why pay extra on top for a few prayers before lunch, a smattering of religious ed., and uniforms?

To me, it doesn’t seem worth it. If a Catholic school offered a good, comprehensive classical education, without chaining kids to the desks and testing them over and over, that’d be the first place to start. A good academic program is key, as is a comprehensive religious ed. program.

And then there’s cost. We have to do something to make it more affordable.

In some ways, I think this is where the Mormon church excels with its tithing and keeping educational costs low for students at BYU. They have the benefit of extorting money, since you can’t enter the temple without donating your set amount. BUT, that keeps college tuition low, among other things. If there was some way to get people who could to give more, and spread that benefit to all practicing Catholics, I think that would go a long way into getting people on board with Catholic schools.