Recent headlines about the closing of two famous diocesan high schools, Cardinal Dougherty and Northeast Catholic have stunned the entire Catholic community of Philadelphia. The contraction of the city’s Catholic school system is no longer in doubt, with more changes coming in the near future.
We know the causes, and one in particular.
Besides white flight to the suburbs, job losses and rising tuition, Catholic education is challenged by the growing number of charter schools. Many people are bewildered by what a charter school is. It looks and feels like a private school: The students wear uniforms, the discipline is usually tight and the curriculum sometimes rigorous. Except that it is totally free. No wonder there are waiting lists.
Charter schools were the brain child of the late president of the American Federation of Teachers, Albert Shanker. He visualized extraordinary schools, founded by private individuals, where new methods and curriculum ideas could be tried and demonstrated for the regular public schools to emulate. They were never meant to replace district schools.
After Pennsylvania passed its own charter school law in 1997, several politicians, including Dwight Evans and Vince Fumo, opened their own charter schools. Fumo, using OPM, acquired the closed Saint Paul’s parochial school building and later the ABC Bakery at 13th and Wharton, to form two divisions of his Christopher Columbus Charter School.
What was meant to be an occasional laboratory for fresh educational ideas soon proliferated into a system with a life of its own. Various charter school companies, like Mastery, were started by businessmen who put themselves in competition with other schools in the city. (What a clever idea, to use tax money as capital for a business venture.)
Let’s be clear: Charter schools are special admissions public schools funded by our tax dollars, operating under their own rules. Applicants, for example, must attend a preliminary meeting to decide if the program is appropriate for their child, fill out long forms, then wait to see if they are chosen by lottery for a limited number of seats. Pennsylvania students who are "at risk" may not always get in. The enrollment closes before school opens.
The pressure on Catholic schools is especially profound as the news illustrates. Auxiliary Bishop Joseph McFadden, spokesman and promoter of Catholic education, is always in the news, campaigning for vouchers for Catholic schools. He also lobbies for the Pennsylvania Education Improvement Act that awards tax credits to companies that hand out scholarships to any private or parochial school they choose.
Things are that bad.
Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania education budget continues to shortchange its regular Philadelphia schools, so that many have to choose whether to hire a music teacher or a librarian, a counselor or an art teacher. Few schools have everything they need. And with all the special needs children attending, it can get very expensive.
So what we have now is a two-tiered system of publicly-funded schools, one of which is simultaneously luring children away from regular public schools and religious schools, with the promise of a free, exclusive education.
Meanwhile, every parish in South Philly recently received a letter from the Archdiocese announcing that there will be a series of meetings among the parish clusters to decide their next move, affecting schools as soon as the 2010 school year. It sounds between the lines like a going-out-of-business notice.
With the state education budget shrinking and assistance from vouchers, tuition tax credits, or scholarships not very likely to happen, this is a crisis situation.
By this time next year, we should have heard more announcements of school closings and mergers, like the successful joining of Saint Maria Goretti and Saint John Neumann High Schools, or the sharing of a single school building by several parishes. Or, as some have suggested, converting a parish school into a charter, with all the funding and accessories except religion, which would be offered by extracurricular means.
Things could get very bizarre.
Gloria C. Endres is a retired public school teacher, currently supervising student teachers.
