Sending teachers where help is needed

National Catholic Reporter, March 31, 1995 by Dorothy Vidulich

WASHINGTON -- It was one of those meetings that produced a new idea: preparing Catholic teachers to work in the rural South.

It came after Holy Cross Fr. Timothy Scully, a vice president and associate provost at the University of Notre Dame, heard Mercy Sr. Lourdes Sheehan, education secretary of the U.S. Catholic Conference, lament the lack of committed, qualified Catholic teachers to work in underresourced school systems in the South and southeastern United States. They are areas where educational standards are among the lowest in the country.

Scully said his teaching experience at Notre Dame told him, "My gosh, the young people are there and eager to serve." He said it was just a question of putting resources at the service of the need.

"That's why I began the Alliance for Catholic Education last year," Scully said. "It provides college graduates with intensive teacher training to prepare them to work in areas in critical need of dedicated teachers."

And now the idea has come full circle. Effective July 1, Sheehan, who sparked the idea, will become director of the Alliance for Catholic Education, or ACE.

"The Alliance for Catholic Education excites me and provides an opportunity to participate in a new and unique program to spur on Catholic schools," said Sheehan, who has been an educator for more than 35 years. Before joining the USCC, she worked for five years with the National Catholic Educational Association as executive director of the National Association of Boards of Education.

The first part of the two-year master's degree program at Notre Dame provides eight weeks of teaching experience in the South Bend public school summer program. Last summer, 40 student teachers were selected from more than 100 applicants to teach remedial classes without pay to students who had failed courses during the regular school year. "The majority of these students are minority and come from needy families," Scully said.

ACE teachers are currently teaching in 30 schools of the dioceses of St. Augustine, Fla.; Mobile, Ala.; Oklahoma City; and Baton Rouge, Alexandria, lake Charles and Shreveport, La. They will integrate their practice experiences with summer graduate study at Notre Dame.

Matthew Mohs, 22, from St. Paul, Minn., teaches American history at St. Thomas Aquinas Regional High School, Hammond, La. "After graduating from Notre Dame, I wanted to give a year or two to service with young people and also wanted to give something back to Catholic education," he said.

Mohs said while the majority of the students are middle-class economically, "everyone is needy in some way. Young people might come from financially stable backgrounds, but they have some tough family problems."

As part of a Notre Dame-sponsored summer service program in 1993, Wendy Holthaus, 22, taught preschool in rural South Carolina. "This solidified my decision to apply for ACE," Holthaus told NCR. She now teaches sixth-grade English and reading at Little Flower School, Mobile, Ala. "The majority of the students," she said, "are minorities, at the low end of the socioeconomic scale."

For the two years they participate in ACE, the young teachers receive a basic stipend of $650 monthly and live together in small communities that provide a base for spiritual and personal development. Holthaus, who grew up in a small town in Iowa, said, "The four of us -- two women and two men -- find support and encouragement in our prayer-centered, simple lifestyle."

ACE provides support for the teachers in the field through the presence of mentor-teachers who evaluate the overall effectiveness of the program in each local school.

ACE, the recipient of the 1995 NCEA C. Albert Koob Merit Award, is recruiting to bring the teaching corps to 90 by next year. Funding comes from a $4,300 fee from each of the schools participating in the program and from annual appeals. ACE received an Americorps grant of $100,000 from the National Service Corporation.