Some think taking public funding will alter identity of Catholic schools - Catholic Education

National Catholic Reporter, March 28, 1997 by John Allen

While a wholesale abandonment of Catholic identity may be unlikely under a voucher plan, some remain concerned about a whittling away of Catholicity around the edges.

Los Angeles archdiocese's Porath, for example, draws a distinction between two purposes Catholic schools serve: preparing students for the world, which requires the best possible education, and evangelizing students in the faith. The former, he said, has to be balanced against the latter.

So, if the government were to offer Catholic schools more resources to enhance the educational experience of their students provided the schools take the crucifixes off the walls, is that a deal Catholic schools would consider?

"If our mission would be better served, we might consider it," Porath said. While Porath was quick to point out that such a move would be contemplated only if the overall deal enhanced the Catholicity of schools, such willingness to consider undoing what generations of Catholics have come to regard as symbols of their schools' identify has some people nervous. "It's a concern," said Sr. Maureen Doyle, principal of the Urban Community School in Cleveland, a Catholic school that elected not to participate in the city's voucher program. "There is a philosophical problem with government involvement in a Catholic school," she said.

While Doyle said that Catholicity was not the reason the Urban Community School opted out of the voucher program, she acknowledged it was on their minds. "I do think Catholicity is an issue," she said.

The second form of the Catholicity debate is less concerned with the specifically Catholic character of schools than it is with the features that come with being private -- local control, flexibility and a spirit that is more communal than bureaucratic. Scholars who have studied the operation of large, state-funded educational systems regard this as a valid concern.

"If I were a strong supporter of Catholic schools, I'd be really concerned about this issue," said Dr. Peter Cookson of Teachers College at Columbia University. "If public dollars flow into Catholic schools, that means the dollars have to be publicly supervised. There will be strings attached, at a minimum in terms of things like civil rights policies. The state could assert minimum standards for teacher training," he said. "In effect, the very quality of a Catholic school that makes it attractive, its autonomy, could be undermined."

Cookson pointed to a 1986 study by Donald Erikson, which showed that when private schools receive state support, they tend to become more like public schools. In Milwaukee, the limited experiment with private school vouchers suggests some legitimacy to this concern.

"There have been subtle attempts to treat non-public schools like publics," said Dr. John Norris, director/superintendent of schools for the Milwaukee archdiocese. "Since voucher kids are students of the Milwaukee public school system, this reasoning goes, the same rules should apply. We have to fight to hold on to site-based management.... It's the biggest strength of the private sector."