Posted on 04/12/2008 6:53:15 AM PDT by kellynla
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- For 46 years, crime, recessions and hurricanes proved no threat to the daily ritual of St. Monica School, where the entire blue-and-white uniformed student body gathered outside each morning to join in prayer.
Come June, though, the tradition will fade away, and "amen" will close St. Monica's morning recitations for the last time. The school, a home-away-from-home for mostly minority students, will close.
As Pope Benedict XVI next week makes his first trip to the U.S. as pontiff, Catholic schools across the country, long a force in educating the underprivileged regardless of their faith, face the same fate as St. Monica.
About 1,267 Catholic schools have closed since 2000 and enrollment nationwide has dropped by 382,125 students, or 14 percent, according to the National Catholic Education Association. The problem is most apparent in inner cities, in schools like St. Monica with large concentrations of minorities whose parents often struggle to pay tuition rather than send them to failing public schools.
"We lose the kids. They can't afford it. And then as the school gets smaller, you have to raise the tuition to pay the costs and it's a vicious cycle," said Sister Dale McDonald, the association's director of public policy and education research.
The pope will gather with Catholic educators during his visit, but not those who run elementary schools _ the meeting is with college presidents.
St. Monica has been operating on a deficit for about a decade. Enrollment went from 368 students in 2004 to 196 today. Requests for financial aid increased. The Archdiocese of Miami devoted more than $2.7 million in subsidies over the past seven years to keep it open.
"There's not the numbers there to keep going," said Kristen Hughes, superintendent of schools for the archdiocese. "The economy really has had a huge impact."
McDonald notes Catholic schools have been closing since their peak in the 1960s, when there were 12,893 schools with about 5.25 million students. Today, there are 7,378 schools with 2.27 million students. The decline in enrollment is accelerating, fueling further school closures.
The recent economic downturn is being blamed for some of them, but McDonald said dioceses' huge payouts to settle sex abuse lawsuits could have played a role too.
"We have no direct correlation," she said, "but as the dioceses have gone into financial debt the funds to subsidize these schools would be diminished."
High school enrollment has remained roughly the same and schools are opening in suburbs, particularly in the West and Southwest. The Northeast and Midwest have been hit hardest.
Some dioceses have turned to public-private partnerships to keep schools open, and others have created consortiums of schools to share resources. In the Archdiocese of Washington, officials plan to convert seven schools into publicly funded charter schools this fall.
Taking taxpayer money means sacrificing the core element of Catholic schools: their faith. The schools won't be able to have prayers, and will have to strip religion from the curriculum. That has prompted petitions from parents who want the schools to stay as they are.
"What is lost is the teachings of the Catholic faith," said Joe McKenzie, a 41-year-old technology consultant who has two children at St. Gabriel School in Washington. "That voice will be silent."
McDonald said she is concerned, too. Catholic schools were once considered vital to passing on the faith to the next generation and to exposing multitudes of non-Catholics to the church. With declining enrollment, the church will need to find new means.
Perhaps most distressing to McDonald and others is the loss of schools in the inner city.
"The church has always had a strong sense of mission, particularly to the poor," she said. "As it becomes more and more difficult, not only on the poor but on middle-income people, we're not really fulfilling the mission of the church to serve all if we only can afford to serve the people who can afford the big bucks."
The issue has caught the attention of President Bush, who called faith-based schools "lifelines of learning" in his State of the Union address and said they were disappearing at an alarming rate. The White House will host a summit on the topic later this month.
Advocates for Catholic schools say it's in the public's interest to preserve them. McDonald said Catholic school students save the government $19.8 billion annually.
"They've left these urban inner-city schools when they close and they have to go somewhere," said Virginia Gentles, who oversees the nonpublic education office of the U.S. Department of Education. "It could be tough for the districts financially and from other standpoints to absorb those children."
For now, parents still line up in cars outside St. Monica each afternoon to pick their children up. Many say how sad they are to see it close.
Semper Fi, Kelly
ping
If the children were being led to chant prayers to Allah they would be receiving taxpayer funding.
I was educated by the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, the Notre Dame nuns. Highly educated, very motivated ladies, and sadly, very few left. My advice to any trying to have an intellectual argument with any of the good sisters is that they better know their facts.
“Taking taxpayer money means sacrificing the core element of Catholic schools: their faith. The schools won’t be able to have prayers, and will have to strip religion from the curriculum. That has prompted petitions from parents who want the schools to stay as they are.”
What’s the problem with forming private religious schools? No money in it? It won’t serve the poor? Isn’t this another example of letting market forces work and keeping government (tax dollars) out of the way?
I attended a private Lutheran School as part of my education as a kid. I had a full scholarship to a private Lutheran college. What’s the scoop? Are Lutheran schools failing at the same rate? Is the failure of these Catholic schools a result from all of the money bilked from the Catholics over bogus “repressed memory” sex abuse lawsuits?
Just askin’...
This will only embolden the NEA and their minions to keep vouchers off the table. And why not? Their strategerie seems to be working. Sadly.
There is something there... Many people in general lost respect for a hypocritical antics of the Catholic church. The handling of the sexual abuses of CHILDREN brought to light finally that this churh is not so holly after all. Rather the contrary. And so there is resentment out there and if the CC itself were to disappear, many would not give a damn.
Most of the schools in my area that close are in areas where the population changes and there aren’t enought catholics around to support it. Remember these are neighborhood schools.
There is also the pesky issue of property taxes taking larger and larger chunks of income and leaving some with little choice.
I have friends whose real estate choices pretty much dictated their school choice.
Here in Djakarta, the Catholic schools are bursting. First tier schools like Santa Ursula, Santa Teresia, and Tarakanita, which my daughters attended, are very difficult to qualify for.
In many of the second tier Catholic schools, a large percentage of the students are RIPpers, as their parents recognise the superiority of these schools. They go through the motions of Catholic religious courses, but the schools wisely make the muzzie parents pay through the nose ........
RIPpers? ROPpers?
“”We lose the kids. They can’t afford it. And then as the school gets smaller, you have to raise the tuition to pay the costs and it’s a vicious cycle,” said Sister Dale McDonald, the association’s director of public policy and education research.”
That’s part of the problem.
Another big problem was switching from staffs consisting of teaching nuns, volunteers, or laypeople willing to work for less - to certified teachers with competitive salaries and benefits.
In our area I found the tension between the “social justice/working wage” folks and the realities of skyrocketing costs to catholic schools very interesting.
If there was an offender to the principle of the “working wage” - it was the catholic school system paying low salaries.
They raised salaries and benefits - which made catholic education a luxury for the wealthy.
I had a similar 12 year experience with Sisters of the Holy Ghost for elementary school and Dominican sisters and priests in high school. The academics were outstanding, but it was equally about building character and people skills such as learning obedience to rules, honesty and integrity, self discipline, delayed gratification, respect for others, empathy, etc. Of course all of this was reinforced at home. All in all it’s a type of education we don’t see a lot of anymore.
Are you saying all of the sex abuse at catholic churches and schools was bogus??
my, my...what a wide bigoted brush you wave...
"that this churh is not so holly after all"
well for starters, we can see that you obviously didn't get a Catholic education; you misspelled "church" and "holy" but you did spell "damn" correctly; you managed to correctly spell what you apparently find important.
"if the CC itself were to disappear, many would not give a damn."
The Founder, Our Lord Jesus Christ will "give a damn."
But you keep up the anti-Catholic smears and see how you fair when the time comes to meet your Maker. LOL
Could there also be the fall out that sex abuse scandals mean fewer parents WANT their children in Catholic school?
Not just the lack of money due to payouts, but that parents are choosing failing public schools over moral failings in Catholic ones.
I also went to Catholic Schools up through the 9th grade. I went to public high school at my choice because the Catholic high schools were all boys. Just because of some bad apples, you can’t throw Catholic education to the wolves. Many, many kids got one heck of an education in Catholic schools. I don’t believe that the problems in the schools are any worse that the public schools. It’s just that the media loves to pick on any thing that will sell more papers.
Oh SPELLING Class... this is a classic! FYI it is not my fault that they don't make better spell checkers...LOL
Now try to pat th spalling problam aside and thing of this: if people like you had shown MORE OUTRAGE at the abasus of the chuuuurch then perhpas the chaaarch would have been more enfactic in its denuciation of the problem...rather thatn just wating for the problem just to GO AWYA.... GO AWAY...
Have a nice day :)
My guess is there’s more to this than the economy. The economy was horrible in the 70’s, they didn’t close then.
Also, I know lots of kids who aren’t Catholic who actually go to Catholic school. Inner city kids whose parents have money problems won’t send them to the P.S’s, and they can’t afford an expensive private school. Voila, lots of minority non Catholics in Catholic school.
My guess is, it’s the rise of school alternatives. You can homeschool, and there are charter schools, online, etc. Florida has some nice online virtual schools. The neighborhood catholic school is no longer the last bastion of people who won’t PS.
As one who was out in front in removing those who abused others, the accusations were not “bogus” but vastly overstated. And the anti-Catholic MSM played it to the max!
Certainly there were sexual abuses by homosexuals on teenagers but the actual numbers of those who were involved in sexual abuse were a fraction of the number reported.
But one, is one too many! And I am proud to say that I helped remove more than one priest from our diocese!
Unfortunately, the Church was led to believe by psychologists that these abusers could be “cured” and for decades the Church was misled. Of course, now we know better and these violators are removed!
Finally, anyone who thinks that such abuses are only in the Catholic Church are fooling themselves. As there have been plenty of other religious, private and public schools, churches and synagogues that have been guilty too.
“I know lots of kids who aren’t Catholic who actually go to Catholic school.”
And for decades, many children from low income families have attended Catholic schools for FREE.
But lets not inject facts into this thread;
that would spoil the smearing from the anti-Catholic bigots! LOL
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