How to save Catholic schools: let the revitalization begin

Commonweal, March 25, 2005 by Joseph O'Keefe

When the definitive history of American Catholicism is written, inner-city Catholic elementary schools will be remembered as one of the most significant achievements of the U.S. church. At their outset, these schools served the children of European immigrants who, because of prejudice, faced daunting prospects. Thanks in large part to Catholic schools, immigrants and their descendants moved quickly out of poverty and into the middle class.

Yet as the children of immigrants became more successful, especially after World War II, they fled the urban neighborhoods of their upbringing, leaving Catholic schools behind. Predictably, many of these schools closed. But many others remained open and have continued their noble mission of providing an education for children who suffer from poverty and discrimination. Having survived the challenges of the twentieth century, though, these schools face new and more vexing problems in the twenty-first.

Enrollment in Catholic elementary schools grew slightly during the 1990s, but it has been dropping during the past few years. According to the National Catholic Educational Association, 1,992,183 children attended Catholic elementary schools in the 1993-94 school year, and in 1998-99 that number climbed to 2,013,102. But in 2003-04 enrollment declined to 1,842,918, and 123 Catholic schools consolidated or closed. There is every indication that enrollment will continue to decline and that more schools will close in the years ahead. Indeed, on February 9, the Diocese of Brooklyn announced the closure of twenty-two elementary schools; and later that month, the Archdiocese of Chicago reported that twenty-three Catholic schools would close before the fall. The crisis is being felt particularly on the elementary level. The situation in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, is illustrative. In 1999, there were 29,129 elementary school students, but by this year the figure had dropped to 23,835.

What's behind the demise of inner-city Catholic schools? Among the causes usually mentioned are:

* Movement of Catholics from urban centers to the suburbs, and from the Northeast and Midwest to the Sun-belt

* Lack of expendable income among lower- and middle-class families in urban neighborhoods

* A drop in donations to dioceses that traditionally helped support non-self-sustaining schools

* Disenchantment in the wake of the recent sexual-abuse scandal, leading to a drop not only in enrollment, but in the number of teachers and donations

* Lack of the infrastructure needed to conduct sophisticated fundraising

* Insufficient government support through vouchers or other programs

* Aging physical plants

* The high cost of technology.

Unfortunately, the amount of available research on inner-city elementary schools is somewhat scarce. The results of one study, conducted by a team of researchers I led at Boston College, were recently published in Sustaining the Legacy: Inner-city Catholic Elementary Schools in the United States (NCEA, 2004). The data we collected provide insight into the problems inner-city schools face, and point toward possible solutions.

During the 2000-01 academic year, our Boston College team collected survey data from the principals of 384 inner-city Catholic elementary schools nationwide on the following topics: student body demographics; teacher and principal characteristics; student family information; community involvement; curriculum and instruction; finances and development; and religious identity.

The data on student demographics clearly show that Catholic schools continue the legacy of serving children of low-income families. The schools accept almost all of the students who apply, and retention rates are very high. By a host of indicators--eligibility for federal-education entitlement programs, families with income below the federal poverty level, single-parent families--it is clear these schools serve children in need. Moreover, as the number of students below the poverty line increases, so does the likelihood that they come from an ethnic minority group--73 percent of the students in our sample were people of color. In Hispanic neighborhoods, many of the students (and their parents) did not speak English. Forty percent of principals stated that the number of minority students enrolled in their schools increased in the previous five years.

In the early days of the Catholic school system, many students came from low-income families and non-English-speaking backgrounds. With a few exceptions, however, almost all were Catholic. This is no longer the case. In our study sample, 66 percent of the students were Catholic, 17 percent were Baptist, and the remaining students were from other Protestant denominations. The vast majority of non-Catholics were African Americans.

We found that these schools were staffed almost exclusively by women, the vast majority of whom were lay. Mirroring all schools in the nation, there was an ethnic mismatch between students and teachers. On average, the staff was overwhelmingly white and female, although there was a somewhat better representation of minorities at schools where most students were from minority backgrounds. Of the staff members working in the study's schools, almost all were Christian, and 90 percent were Catholic. Teacher retention is a challenge for all urban schools--public and private--and the schools in our sample were no exception. These schools suffer from a revolving door of young teachers, who leave for higher paying jobs or to fill positions in the public sector.