Catholic schools can't ignore trends in catechesis, finance: rising tuition costs threaten mission

National Catholic Reporter, March 27, 1998 by James Youniss

Some financial relief has come from scholarship programs that community leaders have created for inner-city students. However, a problem can be anticipated as relationships with the founders fade and the new school managers begin to weigh financial feasibilitY against mission.

Along the East Coast, suburban Catholic schools are said to have waiting lists. Apparently a proportion of the present generation of young Catholic parents prefers Catholic to public schooling for their children. Schools that only a decade ago went begging for students are now being pressed to expand.

The oddity here is that most studies of this generation of young adults have found them to be spiritually motivated but disinterested in the institutionalized churches, whatever the denomination. It is, thus, not clear why these parents have chosen Catholic school education. Many want to escape public schools or to seek affordable private education that promises quality academic training in a disciplined atmosphere. These families may not be terribly interested in or supportive of efforts to strengthen the Catholicity of schools, especially when doing so is perceived to conflict with "academic" objectives.

It is rare to learn of an opening of a parish school within cities. As enrollment declined during the past 30 years, many parishes had to give up their schools either by closing or through consolidation with other parishes. As with secondary schools, these schools are populated by mainly minority, non-Catholic students. Hence, to maintain them requires an explicit mission to do so.

The ethnic groups for whom these parishes were built may have left some time ago, with the conversion to a new mission having been made by pastors and religious teachers who have probably retired. It is not clear how long the sense of mission can be retained by the new administrators who have to meet expenses and deal with urban decay.

In some areas of the country, diocesan officials are making special efforts to keep these schools open. Still, further consolidations can be anticipated, and eventually one can imagine tension building between suburban Catholics who want schools for their children and church officials who draw on diocesan funds to keep schools open for non-Catholic students.

Religious education

In the proverbial school of, say, 1950, Catholicism permeated the classrooms, the halls and the playground. Sisters celebrated saints' name days, urged the purchase of pagan babies or glowed over papal statements as if they were part of the everyday order of things. Religion was taught formally through the Baltimore Catechism, but socialization into Catholicism was done through a thousand daily acts of inculturation.

While contemporary researchers have noted a distinctive character that may account for the positive impact of Catholic schools, the quality and effectiveness of religious socialization are open questions. Recent studies have shown that students in Catholic schools and students in parish religious education programs score similarly on tests of religious knowledge.