Superintendent's goal: education for all; love of learning inspires Anne Shepard

National Catholic Reporter, March 31, 1995 by Leslie Wirpsa

Anne Shepard loves learning -- and thrives on making it possible for others.

At 49, Benedictine Sr. Shepard can hardly remember a time when education, specifically Catholic education, was not a key element of her life.

The fourth child in a Catholic family of eight, raised in Washington, Shepard said there was no question at home that she and her siblings were to be educated through college -- and that it be Catholic education.

She said she grew up thinking that "everyone just got a degree." She did not even know when she was little that "other (children's) parents hadn't graduated from college," she said.

Those values shaped Shepard's life decisions and eventually led to a variety of teaching and administrative positions in the Midwest and a doctorate in education curriculum and instruction from Columbia University in New York. She is currently superintendent of schools of the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese, overseeing 34 diocesan elementary schools, five diocesan high schools and three private schools with more than 12,500 students and approximately 800 teachers.

"The value of education is in my genes," Shepard told NCR, tracing her family's "lineage" in the world of pedagogy -- a great-aunt who pioneered by opening a school in Manhattan, N. Y., her maternal grandfather, who was the first principal of George Washington High School in New York, a brother who was the first president of Brooklyn College.

But it was a mean teacher, Shepard said, who convinced her to commit her own life to education.

"I got in trouble in the third grade for giggling with David H. I got sent to the principal's office, and (David) didn't because `boys will be boys," she said. "It was that year I decided I was going to be a teacher and make learning fun. That woman had no sense of humor. I didn't mind strict teachers, but I did mind mean (teachers)."

Shepard said she spent her high school years comparing the way teachers taught. She asked herself, "Did I really want to do this? It was clear I did."

That discernment dovetailed with a prod from a priest during a high school retreat that prompted Shepard to consider religious life.

"His line was, `Every one of you girls needs to think about it seriously. Some of you are going to be called," Shepard said.

She remembered, "I almost threw up! I thought that might mean me."

It most certainly did. Her decision to join the order came when she was a junior at Mount St. Sholastica College in Atchison, Kan., where she was studying for a degree in mathematics. The college is run by the Benedictines.

"The Benedictines were a group of wonderful women and wonderful teachers," Shepard said. "But I was hoping I wouldn't like it. I figured if I tried, though, and didn't like religious life, at least I'd done what you were supposed to do as a Catholic girl."

Thirty years later, Shepard is still a Benedictine nun, but she has some very different views on the "supposed to's" of Catholic education. Shepard has become a respected leader in the field of both Catholic and multicultural education in the United States and Europe.

Her main concern with Catholic education in the United States is how to make sure it is accessible to all those children who want it.

"I am very concerned that Catholic schools not be just for the upper-middle class and the upper class, but that they be available to the poor and to the middle class," she said.

The costs of Catholic education has risen, partly due to the shift from religious, who staffed the schools at almost no cost, to laypeople who are paid.

The increased costs have made Catholic education less accessible to the poor, especially in the inner cities.

"Catholic education is going to be available in the suburban schools -- there is funding for that. It is a little bit harder problem in the central cities. The parishes in the central cities have a tougher time supporting the ministries within the parish," she said.

Shepard, like Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., Bishop Raymond J. Boland, believes endowments can help to bridge the financial gulfs.

"But I am one to think we really ought to pilot some voucher programs in the United States ... to strengthen the competition between the public schools and the Catholic schools," Shepard said.

Under this system, parents would be given a voucher for 50 percent of costs for schooling in the public school district. This voucher could be used for any school.

"This would mean parents are deliberately choosing where their children go, not just being victims of the public school setting," Shepard said. In this way, stronger schools would get stronger, and weaker schools would dose -- all across the board.

And, she added, children whose parents are struggling would not have to overcome "a pride factor" and seek scholarships for low-income families. Vouchers would be available to all.

"I think that Catholic schools should only survive if they are as good as the local public schools, at least, if not better," Shepard said. "And if they have a strong religious element to them. If those are missing, they should close."