From Catholic Schools to Charters: What's Left?
Marc Fisher
The Washington Post
The bottom line is clear, says Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl: The Catholic Church can no longer afford to run a full complement of inner-city parochial schools serving a population that is, by an overwhelming majority, non-Catholic.
So, facing a deficit of about $50 million over the next five years, the church is moving to convert at least seven D.C. elementary schools into secular, taxpayer-funded charter schools.
"We simply don't have the resources to keep all those schools open," Wuerl said in an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors the other day. "We have exhausted the resources available to us."
But as the parochial schools move through the charter approval process, the question is what would those schools be if they emerge as publicly-supported, non-religious institutions? Catholic schools, even when they are educating a population that is 76 percent non-Catholic and almost entirely black and Hispanic, as in the Archdiocese's D.C. schools, "provide a faith-based formation," Wuerl says. "These schools give kids a self-confidence, a hope."
Take away the religious foundation and what remains? You'd have "the same teachers, the same kids, the same environment," the archbishop says. "There will still be a level of value formation."
***
But the bottom line is the bottom line, and he figures charters are the best the church can do right now: "If the alternative is a failing public school, then isn't the charter school the better" choice, he asks.
Perhaps so, but any institution that chooses to save money by chipping away at its appeal to the next generation is buying a big box of trouble. In the end, the church is following its members, naturally focusing its educational work on places where there are more Catholics. Sadly, that entails pulling back on a grand urban tradition of educating inner city children, regardless of their denomination.
Click here for the original article.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Blaine On Trial
Blaine On Trial
Gerald J. Russello
National Catholic Register
April 6-12, 2008 Issue
Ever hear of the Blaine amendment? It’s sort of obscure, but it remains one of the last remnants of bigotry in the statute books. Some court cases are finally beginning to tackle this shameful legacy.
***
In 1998, New York enacted a charter school law, which enables the state to provide funding for private or independent schools. These schools are usually in areas where the public schools are failing, and would give poorer families a chance at shaping their children’s education.
New Horizons Church Ministry is a Baptist congregation in New York City’s Harlem, and applied for a charter school license under the law.
But the law establishing the charter school program provides — following New York’s Blaine amendment — that support should be refused to any school “wholly or in part under the control of direction of any religions denomination, or in which any denominational tenet or doctrine would be taught.”
New Horizons was refused funding by the state because it proposed to establish a school in keeping with its religious principles.
Late last year, the pastor of New Horizons sued the state seeking a court to declare the prohibition of funding religious schools in the charter school law and New York’s Blaine amendment as a whole unconstitutional under the federal Constitution.
The case is now making its way through the court system, and is one of a number of challenges to state-level Blaine amendments.
The New Horizons case should be of considerable interest to all those interested in religious education, but specifically in Catholic education. While the development of parochial schools developed independently of public schools, there is no reason why Blaine amendments should block Catholic schools from accepting funds pursuant to a state charter school program.
Indeed, in poorer neighborhoods, the need for such schools is greater than ever, and eliminating Blaine amendments would enable religious schools of all types to have a chance to succeed and help their communities. And Catholics should have a particular desire to see these legal remnants of anti-Catholic discrimination erased from the statute books.
In other words, it is time for the bigoted heritage of the Blaine amendments to pass into history.
Click here for the original article.
Gerald J. Russello
National Catholic Register
April 6-12, 2008 Issue
Ever hear of the Blaine amendment? It’s sort of obscure, but it remains one of the last remnants of bigotry in the statute books. Some court cases are finally beginning to tackle this shameful legacy.
***
In 1998, New York enacted a charter school law, which enables the state to provide funding for private or independent schools. These schools are usually in areas where the public schools are failing, and would give poorer families a chance at shaping their children’s education.
New Horizons Church Ministry is a Baptist congregation in New York City’s Harlem, and applied for a charter school license under the law.
But the law establishing the charter school program provides — following New York’s Blaine amendment — that support should be refused to any school “wholly or in part under the control of direction of any religions denomination, or in which any denominational tenet or doctrine would be taught.”
New Horizons was refused funding by the state because it proposed to establish a school in keeping with its religious principles.
Late last year, the pastor of New Horizons sued the state seeking a court to declare the prohibition of funding religious schools in the charter school law and New York’s Blaine amendment as a whole unconstitutional under the federal Constitution.
The case is now making its way through the court system, and is one of a number of challenges to state-level Blaine amendments.
The New Horizons case should be of considerable interest to all those interested in religious education, but specifically in Catholic education. While the development of parochial schools developed independently of public schools, there is no reason why Blaine amendments should block Catholic schools from accepting funds pursuant to a state charter school program.
Indeed, in poorer neighborhoods, the need for such schools is greater than ever, and eliminating Blaine amendments would enable religious schools of all types to have a chance to succeed and help their communities. And Catholics should have a particular desire to see these legal remnants of anti-Catholic discrimination erased from the statute books.
In other words, it is time for the bigoted heritage of the Blaine amendments to pass into history.
Click here for the original article.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Rhode Island Charter School operated by a Christian Brother
Note: This article is about Steve Aveson, a one time Baltimore Journalist. It mentions a Providence, RI charter school run by a Christian Brother.
Whatever happened to... Steve Aveson?
The Baltimore Sun
Jacques Kelly
February 23, 2008
When WJZ-TV's Evening Magazine went off the air at the end of 1990, its popular co-host, Steve Aveson, went on to gain a national audience.
He moved to New York and spent four years at ABC News as a Good Morning America and 20/20 correspondent. He also was an anchor for ABC News programs, including World News This Morning, Good Morning America Sunday and Discovery News, a science program. He also had a stint with the broadcast division of The Christian Science Monitor and then returned to a metro market as an anchor at Fox 25 in Boston.
***
In his free time, he mentors at-risk boys in a Providence charter school run by a Christian Brother. He also works with the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Rhode Island and the Juvenile Diabetes Association.
Follow this link to the original article.
Whatever happened to... Steve Aveson?
The Baltimore Sun
Jacques Kelly
February 23, 2008
When WJZ-TV's Evening Magazine went off the air at the end of 1990, its popular co-host, Steve Aveson, went on to gain a national audience.
He moved to New York and spent four years at ABC News as a Good Morning America and 20/20 correspondent. He also was an anchor for ABC News programs, including World News This Morning, Good Morning America Sunday and Discovery News, a science program. He also had a stint with the broadcast division of The Christian Science Monitor and then returned to a metro market as an anchor at Fox 25 in Boston.
***
In his free time, he mentors at-risk boys in a Providence charter school run by a Christian Brother. He also works with the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Rhode Island and the Juvenile Diabetes Association.
Follow this link to the original article.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Notre Dame Catholic School closing
By Nancy Pasternack
The Appeal-Democrat
Marysville, CA
When teachers at Notre Dame Catholic School received the bad news last week, they gave their students an extra-long recess outdoors, and cried.
Then they pulled themselves together and threw the Valentine's Day party the children were expecting.
After more than 150 years of offering catechism instruction along with reading, writing and arithmetic, Notre Dame Catholic School in Marysville will graduate its last eighth-grade class this year.
***
Broughton and an advisory board made up of parents and students already have begun the process of trying to create a new public charter school within the Marysville Joint Unified School District.
Hopefully, Broughton said, "we'll be able to continue the school, but without the religious instruction."
The group will model the charter school on one in Paradise that has a similar history and population, Broughton said.
Eisermann, Kemmerly and the school's other teachers say they support the charter school idea, and that they will teach at the new school, if it comes to fruition.
Follow this link for the full original article.
The Appeal-Democrat
Marysville, CA
When teachers at Notre Dame Catholic School received the bad news last week, they gave their students an extra-long recess outdoors, and cried.
Then they pulled themselves together and threw the Valentine's Day party the children were expecting.
After more than 150 years of offering catechism instruction along with reading, writing and arithmetic, Notre Dame Catholic School in Marysville will graduate its last eighth-grade class this year.
***
Broughton and an advisory board made up of parents and students already have begun the process of trying to create a new public charter school within the Marysville Joint Unified School District.
Hopefully, Broughton said, "we'll be able to continue the school, but without the religious instruction."
The group will model the charter school on one in Paradise that has a similar history and population, Broughton said.
Eisermann, Kemmerly and the school's other teachers say they support the charter school idea, and that they will teach at the new school, if it comes to fruition.
Follow this link for the full original article.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Ross County Christian Academy is growing
Ross County Christian Academy is growing
Officials still hoping for permanent home
By JONA ISON
Gazette Staff Writer
Ross County Christian Academy is gearing up for a second year of operation and hopes to expand services.
Although the academy still hopes to have a permanent home of its own one day, Brookside Church on Egypt Pike has agreed to allow the academy to operate there again for the 2008-09 school year, said Mike MacCarter, co-director of the academy.
***
The school serves students in kindergarten through sixth grade, but if enrollment warrants it, the academy will expand to include seventh grade in 2008-09. Also, an interest survey has been distributed to the academy's endorsing churches to determine if there enough families interested in preschool to create a preschool program at the academy.
Beginning next school year, MacCarter said the academy hopes it will be approved as a state charter school.
"They have some regulations with curriculum, which we're doing most of those already," MacCarter said.
Follow this link for the complete original article.
Officials still hoping for permanent home
By JONA ISON
Gazette Staff Writer
Ross County Christian Academy is gearing up for a second year of operation and hopes to expand services.
Although the academy still hopes to have a permanent home of its own one day, Brookside Church on Egypt Pike has agreed to allow the academy to operate there again for the 2008-09 school year, said Mike MacCarter, co-director of the academy.
***
The school serves students in kindergarten through sixth grade, but if enrollment warrants it, the academy will expand to include seventh grade in 2008-09. Also, an interest survey has been distributed to the academy's endorsing churches to determine if there enough families interested in preschool to create a preschool program at the academy.
Beginning next school year, MacCarter said the academy hopes it will be approved as a state charter school.
"They have some regulations with curriculum, which we're doing most of those already," MacCarter said.
Follow this link for the complete original article.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Catholic school closings: Parents race
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
On Tuesday morning, Carolyn Hanna toured Archangel School in Irondequoit, where she plans to send her three children if Bishop Matthew Clark follows through with closing St. John of Rochester School in Perinton.
In addition to pictures of Martin Luther King, Amelia Earhart and Anne Frank, students at the school had decorated the walls with colorful renditions of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Elizabeth Seton.
Inclusion of such religious heroes matters to Hanna, whose children attend one of 13 Catholic schools in Monroe County that are slated to close in June.
Since the decision was announced Friday, hundreds of parents have met to devise strategies to persuade the bishop to save their schools. Catholic schools not affiliated with the diocese, such as Archangel, have been flooded with requests for enrollment information.
Some Catholic school supporters have called for the Rochester Roman Catholic Diocese to follow a national trend of converting doomed schools to "values-based" charter schools.
Follow this link to the original article.
On Tuesday morning, Carolyn Hanna toured Archangel School in Irondequoit, where she plans to send her three children if Bishop Matthew Clark follows through with closing St. John of Rochester School in Perinton.
In addition to pictures of Martin Luther King, Amelia Earhart and Anne Frank, students at the school had decorated the walls with colorful renditions of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Elizabeth Seton.
Inclusion of such religious heroes matters to Hanna, whose children attend one of 13 Catholic schools in Monroe County that are slated to close in June.
Since the decision was announced Friday, hundreds of parents have met to devise strategies to persuade the bishop to save their schools. Catholic schools not affiliated with the diocese, such as Archangel, have been flooded with requests for enrollment information.
Some Catholic school supporters have called for the Rochester Roman Catholic Diocese to follow a national trend of converting doomed schools to "values-based" charter schools.
Follow this link to the original article.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Brazoria County Year in Review
April 27, 2007: Columbia Christian School announces it will close May 31, but longtime students can take classes in the same buildings as a public charter school, West Columbia Charter School, is set to open in its place.
Link to the original article.
Link to the original article.
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