Fifty years ago, Catholic schools educated 5.6 million children in thirteen thousand schools across America. Perhaps the most depressing passage of Catholic School Renaissance—a new book by Andy Smarick and Kelly Robson aimed at philanthropists—is found on pages twelve and thirteen, which present inglorious charts detailing the deterioration of Catholic schools and their enrollment. Though that decline is not presently as drastic as it was during the 60s and 70s, it’s easy to despair over the state of one of most successful learning mechanisms in U.S. history.
Luckily, the next hundred pages explain what ought to be done to save these national assets. Smarick and Robson believe that our growing national acceptance of school choice provides a climate ripe for a Catholic comeback—and donors have the biggest role to play in bringing about the renaissance. “The question is no longer whether Catholic schools should be run differently; it’s about how,” they argue. The book explains how promising models should be scaled and offers a few viable solutions to the biggest problems plaguing the sector (teacher recruitment and retention chief among them). In a useful appendix, it lists dozens of opportunities for donors to shape systems via marketing, data reporting, and infrastructure development, as well as the approximate cost of each reform.
The Cristo Rey Network is one attractive candidate for expansion. To offset tuition costs, students (almost ten thousand in all) work five days per month in entry-level jobs at hospitals, universities, law firms, and other businesses. As they gain work experience, their income goes directly toward tuition, covering 40–60 percent of each student’s costs. Minority students make up 97 percent of those enrolled in the network, which now comprises thirty schools in nineteen states and Washington, D.C.
On the twin challenges of recruitment and retention, the report quotes Seton Education Partners cofounder Stephanie Saroki de Garcia: “Virtually no one in the country is recruiting, selecting, and compensating urban Catholic school leaders the right way.” Part of the problem, the authors submit, is that these positions tend to pay significantly less than comparable ones in district schools.
Smarick and Robson argue that the sector ought to direct focus to the benefits of teaching outside of public schools, such as better student behavior and more flexible credentialing requirements. And donors should look to the Catholic teacher education programs that are already providing multi-year training and mentoring for their staff, such as Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education, the Lynch Leadership Academy, and Partners Advancing Values in Education. Philanthropic support for these models would go a long way toward helping them attract and retain better classroom leaders.
In all, Catholic School Renaissance is a great guidebook for philanthropists curious about how they can help sustain a great American educational traditional. Donors ought to take heed.
SOURCE: Andy Smarick and Kelly Robson, Catholic School Renaissance: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Strengthening a National Asset (Washington D.C.: The Philanthropy Roundtable, 2015).
