Schools worthy of kids; St. Angela's needs help - South Bronx, New York Catholic school

Commonweal, April 9, 1993 by Patrick F. Kelly

Visualize a map of the United States and point to the area where excellent schools are most needed. Your metaphorical forefinger is probably resting on my building, Saint Angela Merici School, in the South Bronx. I'm the new principal.

Catholic education in the inner city is no longer a monolith: stern sisters backed by strong pastors and children of European descent. Today, the face of the Catholic presence in places like the South Bronx is of many colors and heritages. Here, the descendants of Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America, all look to the church to provide an educational alternative in the nation's poorest congressional district.

The faiths of our kids are nearly as diverse as their skin tones. In my school, about six out often are baptized Catholics, and a smaller proportion attend weekly Mass. This makes some critics unhappy. Should the church invest such capital-economic and spiritual--on a population at best nominally Catholic? The parents and guardians of our students make great sacrifices to send these children to Catholic schools, in most cases coveting 80 to 90 percent of our schools' operating costs. Yet last year alone, the Archdiocese of New York had to transfer over $20 million to cover the expenses of inner-city school s. By focusing on this aspect of the church's obligation to serve the poor, the archdiocese has been a blessing to my students and to tens of thousands of children all over the city. But the problem facing Cardinal John O'Connor, the archdiocese, and the future of Catholic education in the South Bronx is still money.

It is sad, but we have a system of schools which is objectively superior to our public schools. This is not said to bash public schools or our dedicated colleagues who work in them. It is a statement of fact. More than a third of New York City public high school kids are not finishing school, and in some public elementary schools only 22 percent of the children are reading at grade level. When students are sitting in over-crowded classrooms receiving inadequate instruction while the schools' attention is focused on divisive social policy issues, the reason the schools exist is obviously not being met.

Our mission at Saint Angela's School is clear. We work to provide competence in basic academic skills in an open, Catholic environment. We believe that each child comes to us with the highest of recommendations: he or she is the image of God.

And, contrary to the weekly columns of Albert Shanker in the Sunday New York Times, we do not bounce children if they fail to memorize the Memorare. This year, out of 505 enrolled students, only one has been asked to leave my school, and this because he threatened violence against a classmate. I even referred him to another local Catholic school and offered to speak on his behalf with the school's principal. Fifteen other kids have left because of financial difficulties. I would have lost two more, but for scholarships, one provided by a parishioner and another by a stranger through the Partnership for Quality Education, whose advertisements appear regularly in the New York press. I know I'll lose more before I'm able to set up a stronger in-house scholarship program for these students.

New York City spends over $7,000 per pupil, while Catholic schools spend about $2,000. We provide better service at less than one-third the cost, and our families, many non-Catholic and many non-practicing Catholics, choose us over a fully subsidized state monopoly.

Vouchers would help, but it appears that, politically, they're a long way off. I'd like only 86 percent of the public subsidy dedicated to education--we can afford to pay the 14 percent of the instructional day apportioned to teaching religion. Some will object that Catholic culture infuses the whole school and therefore state aid would be supporting the promotion of religion. But I could argue that state money is equally infected with the secular culture pervasive in our public schools and that these public funds support that value system. But the chance of public money for my program is remote, so we are left to our own devices.

This fall, the superintendent, the vicar for education, and their support staffs met with all the principals of the archdiocese. They told us that our subsidies from the archdiocese will be reduced by 50 percent each year until they are no more. This was not surprising. The word has been out since the October 1987 stock market crash that the church had taken a beating in the market, and what was once available is gone.

It's well over five years since the crash and this is the first fiscal year schools have seen their subsidies cut. For those of us in charge of inner-city Catholic schools, the heat is on. Now.

District Nine in the South Bronx is composed of six Catholic schools. Some of us are struggling for our lives, and all of us are fighting to keep our programs within the reach of our economically battered communities. To improve our programs and seek outside help, we've had a great many meetings and joined forces to form a cooperative, the Association for South Bronx Catholic Schools, Inc. (ASBCS). Each pastor has joined his principal in the process, dedicating time and money to the association. As far as I know, no other district in the archdiocese has tried this collegial model. The pastors' commitment to the ASBCS has led to archdiocesan approval for our work, and this is no small matter. The principals are another story. I am tempted to write about each of them. They are a fundamental reason for the success of Catholic education in the South Bronx, and a key factor in my decision to accept my appointment as principal. After only eight months, I'm already deeply in their debt.