CARDINAL George Pell is among a group of Catholic leaders calling on the church’s schools to maximise their enrolment of Catholic children.
According to News Limited today, Dr Pell and his group want preference given to children from a school’s parish, followed by other Catholics, then other Christians and then finally to students with other religions.
The schools have been urged, in an edict reportedly signed by Dr Pell, to “re-examine how they might maximise enrolment of Catholic students”.
They have also been urged to increase the proportion of school staff who are “practising and knowledgeable Catholics”.
Catholic families will also be urged to “maximise their participation”.
The letter, with Dr Pell as head signatory, said: “Half the students of Catholic families are enrolled in state schools and a growing proportion go to non-Catholic independent schools.
“Another enrolment trend of particular concern has been the decline in representation in our schools of students from both poorer and wealthier families.”
I think that you could write a program to determine the bias in a news story based on the words used. Certainly the word "edict" would be a highly weighted word in this context. A document you like is called a letter or instruction, one you don’t like is called an edict.
I wonder how long it will take before some Australian columnist links this to the new CDF document as another attack on non-Catholics. What the Cardinal is requesting is of course common sense and when you get a high index on non-Catholic students and teachers you are usually going to end up with a non-Catholic school or one with a "Catholic Identity" but hardly any actual Catholic content.
A writer in another column that gives two views on this writes:
Catholic schools exist not only because of a percentage of government funding, but also because of sacrifices and donations made by previous generations of Catholics, many working class.
The more non-Catholics they take, the more Catholic schools risk weakening the importance of the Church’s teachings and philosophy alongside academia.
While the opposing writer says:
But at the risk of getting into a biblical slanging match with any member of the clergy, there seems to be a pretty convincing argument that Jesus wouldn’t be falling over Himself to endorse the Church’s present line of thinking.
In the Gospel of St Mark, His views on the issue seem pretty unequivocal: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners," he said.
No one is suggesting Catholic children shouldn’t be brought up in the faith, or that Catholic parents shouldn’t enrol their kids in schools catering to their beliefs.
But to encourage the inclusion of some children more than others seems to fly in the face of everything I was taught at school.
I was not surprised to see her ending line to be "As a product of the Catholic education system, I find that pretty extraordinary." I find her scriptural argument to be rather weak since as every Catholic parent knows their children are sinners also.
21 comments
Well, in order to enroll more Catholic students, the dioceses could start by cheapening the tuition a bit.
Our Catholic grade school tuition is about $2500 a student…and that is after the parish kicks in 25% of the cost per student. For my two youngest that is a shade over $5K a year. My oldest attends a public high school…at $6K a year it is just too expensive (almost like tuition only at a state college). I would have loved to send him to Catholic high school…he might one day become a priest, he has attended two ‘Andrew dinners’ for prospective priests in our diocese…but with our middle class income $11K a year just isn’t possible, even with a lot of belt tightening.
Don’t fool yourself…there are few if any lower class Catholic students at most Catholic schools around the country…we have about 20 Catholic schools in this city and they are predominantly upper middle class to upper class student bodies across the board…just take a look at the parking lots one day at a Catholic Leeague sporting event.
If Catholic schools don’t find more students, Catholic or otherwise, some of them will simply shut their doors (it is happening here already), because as tuition goes up each year at 5-10%, fewer people can afford the luxury of Catholic schools (“luxury” compared to eating).
I hear ya John. The Catholic tuition is ridiculously high and I doubt they’re getting any better of an education. In my case it would just be to keep him safe from the public schools. He’ll be taught the same secular crap in Catholic Schools as he will in public schools.
While he does have a doctorate, I find it interesting that after the 1st line they keep calling him Dr. rather than Cardinal. I don’t want to assume the worst. It may just be that they wanted to save the environment by using less ink. But I think that it was their way of downplaying his Spiritual leadership & authority instead.
Here, here! The real problem is cost. It’s ironic. Good Catholics often have large families. More kids means less $$ per child are available.
How about first giving priority to teachers and principals who go to Mass (preferably at one of the parishes in the area of the school) weekly? How about replacing the secular values with Church Teaching so that devout Catholic parents no longer feel alienated or obligated to pull their child?
That should have the same overall benefit without giving unmerited favor to students.
It costs $405 a month, 10 months a year, for me to send my two children to Catholic elementary schools. They used to go to public schools and the expense is difficult for us; we live frugally and when the second switched to Catholic school all our disposable income was gone. My daughter is in eighth grade and would like to go to a certain Catholic high school that costs $7,500. I don’t see how I can afford it. Our school does not give a break in tuition until the FOURTH child. Many Catholic families I know debate which is the most important, elementary or high school, and choose to pay for just one.
However, having been briefly involved in a private school’s board, I know how expensive it is to run a school. Schools are no longer staffed by nuns who work for free. My husband’s parents put four children through Catholic elementary and high schools, it was simply more affordable then.
Finally, I don’t think the Catholic schools in my area have done a good job of marketing themselves at all. They seem to expect that people will send their children, and there are many other educational options, some of them excellent. With many of the parishes as wishy-washy as they are, so that there often seems to be no compelling reason to be Catholic, sending your children to Catholic school can seem old-fashioned and unnecessary.
I can’t afford to buy a Catholic education. I’ve got 7 kids – sorry, but 3k EACH per year is too much. Plus books. I can barely afford a Catholic homeschool!
Oh, and perhaps ditch the plaid MINISKIRT uniform.
It would also help if the Catholic schools actually used Catholic textbooks. Unfortunately, at least around here, the Catholic schools are boasting that they are using the state approved textbooks that the public schools are using.
I am not going to spend $2500 per child to send my children to a school that is Catholic only for the 30 minutes that they are in religion class three days a week and the one day a week that the whole school goes to Mass.
Just my 2cents.
To tackle the cost of Catholic education and to promote a Catholic philosophy of education that keeps parents as the primary educator of their children, we’re starting up Catholic Homeschooling Co-ops where kids come to the parish 3 or 4 days a week to receive direct instruction from qualified teachers and home school the other days. Parents pitch in to pay for our dedicated teachers without having to pay for all the cost of having a “real school.” It’s working beautifully. In order to change things, we need to regain the pioneering/apostolic spirit of those who built the Catholic Schools in our nation in the first place. We have to be willing to do without some of the non-essential luxuries associated with most high-cost (in more ways than one)schools. In Christ, MaryH
This is one of the bitter fruits of the lessened number of vocations. Two problems mentioned above can be linked to this: (1) the cost of tuition, and (2) the not-necessarily-wonderful formation to be found in many (most?) Catholic schools.
(Although the latter is not new to this generation; a problem with bitter and unorthodox nuns existed before the vocations crisis became fully visible)
Well said, MaryH. Catholic parishes should do more to help Catholic homeschoolers. As to the cost of Catholic textbooks – Seton, Tan, etc. sell Catholic text books at very reasonable prices.
How about a CATHOLIC SCHOOL in which the RELIGION TEACHER told my daughters class, “Transubstantiation is a SYMBOL.”
That, and a horribly elitist Principal UNSOLD us on Catholic education, locally. We voted with our feet.
Deacon Tom
OK folks, here’s a POV from the other side:
I live in a diocese (one of 3 in the country) that does not charge tuition. We ask for about a total of $1300 per year per family in the form of their normal tithing. The parish subsidizes 2/3 of the 1st child’s education and all of any extra children’s education. We never refuse a child because mom and dad can’t pay. (I tell the parish that we are church and not a bank). WE have parish picnics, breakfasts, suppers, and other fundraisers to make up part of the difference. I have personally overseen the re-vamping of the religion texts (we now use the Ignatius series) and personally teach 7th and 8th grade religion myself. WE have worked on upping the Catholic Identity of the school (confessions are available before each weekday Mass [kids go to Mass 3x a week]) and on 1st Fridays; they have monthly Eucharistic Adoration, weekly rosaries…etc.). Meat is not served on Fridays. but….
-we run a 50-60K deficit a year
-parents are more concerned about the sports than the school
-about 40% of the kids are never here on Sunday.
– some of my teachers only get 85% of what their public school counterparts make. THank God they are dedicated!
This year I am meeting with each school family in their home to encourage better participation. But it is an uphill battle.
THose that rue the idea of tuition and how expensive sending a child to a Catholic School can be…it isn’t easy funding one either. I occasionally remind the parishioners that I do not have a magic money tree where I can just pluck hundred dollar bills off to pay for the school. I have already slashed any spending on the rectory or convent [both need serious repairs] and try to keep my personal spending [called table and laundry] to an absolute minimum, I pay for my own cell phone, do not get cable or dish (I don’t even have a TV). I have made these sacrifices because I believe in the mission of the Church. It does gripe me though that people get upset about giving or don’t understand what it takes to make a parish school run.
OK…off my soap box now.
Fr Bp:
Where are you? Can I move to your diocese? 😉
Another item I didn’t mention – location. There is ONE Catholic school around here, with a waiting list. So even if I could afford it, only 3 out of 4 of my kids could go.
My two children did attend a SSPX Catholic school for a year – it was the only school we could afford. They had a tuition work program and I cleaned the school every third week and volunteered time in exchange for tuition. They also had a uniform closet for families who donated outgrown uniforms so my boys got parts of their uniforms for free. I thought it kind of sad that the SSPX took us in (even though we didn’t attend their church) and the diocesan schools wouldn’t even discuss scholarships/bartering etc.
I felt guilty about not sending my two younger children to a Catholic school as I did my oldest, but it just wasn’t affordable. Once we did the math and realized that we could move from a squishy apartment to a small but adequate house in a good school district for less than the tuition of all three including high school, we moved.
Years later, when the TRUTH of my daughter’s Catholic school experience was revealed, I found the move had been a right one. If the education and the environment are not truly Catholic, the effort isn’t worth the loss, not just in dollars, etc, but in damage to a child’s character and in lack of music/language/sports programs which help to build character.
Father BP,
I would gladly part with 10% of my gross income (which is more than $1300) if that meant I could send my children to a good Catholic school and I were not expected to contribute more to the parish financial needs. The situation you describe seems more than manageable from the perspective of a young family.
Unfortunately, I have four children and 10% of my gross income would not be enough money to send even two of them to a private Catholic school (you only get a discount if you have more than four enrolled at the same time – and our bishop boycotted the opening Mass for the public Catholic school because they refused to obey his instructions to stop raising funds through casino). And then there are still all the organizations at the parish, diocesan, and international level wanting more of my money to do important work.
The easiest way to give a break on tuition is to follow the rule that my alma mater had: If your parents tithe, the first child is free. The cost for the second child can be deferred by volunteering at the school for XXX hours or contributing food, lumber, etc. for projects.
Of course, the textbooks we had were donated by Divine Child in Detroit – nearly 3 hours away from us. So we had old texts, but they were free.
Wow! I paid $300/mo. for 12 months for my son to attend a Catholic school that was deficient not only in its Catholicism, but in its educational goals. $450 for 2 kids looks great. AND the rate I paid was the in-parish rate, which I was almost denied because I couldn’t PROVE that we had been tithing because we didn’t know about the envelope system. AND we had to be contributing a minimum amount to get the in-parish rate, in spite of our income level. The fight to prove that I was a good parishoner was almost enough to dissuade me. After experiencing the horrible academics and the poor catechesis, I suspect it would have been better had the proving myself ordeal dissuaded me from sending my son there! This is the only Catholic school in our area for some reason, and it is a poor, poor option. There are two Independent School Districts (as they’re called), and because the Catholic school is situated in the worse of the two, it only has to be marginally better than the academically poor ISD to attract students. I wish, for starters, there was more rigorous oversight, at least in this case. But then, I come from a city where the Catholic schools are superior to the public schools, without necessarily being symbols of status (though some are). It’s pretty sad that the education of one’s child should be on par with living in a gated community or buying oneself a Lexus–particularly when the school is supposed to be instilling Catholic values!! But I’ve seen it in a city 3 hours NE of where we are now!!
All this is to say, I guess, that the schools and the parents need tore-prioritize (and perhaps the dioceses and the orders running the schools) and provide concrete reasons that are not status-based for parents to make the sacrifices necessary to send their children to Catholic schools. I hope to find a GOOD Catholic school when we’re settled more permanently than we are now, but I want good academics AND religion–it’s not an either-or proposition for me, and I’m not going to sacrifice my child’s intelligence for a perceived values-based education that is weak at best.
Joanne, we had four nuns, volunteer teachers (probably they’d be home-schooling parents now), teachers retired from other professions, and lay teachers who were willing to accept years of low pay (supplemented by a spouse or part-time jobs). Also, we had school lunches only once a week (Wednesday) prepared and paid for by the families on rotation.
We DID have one problems with the curriculum – no algebra, so we had to take that at the high school level. And that was also the rub – we had no high school because our parish couldn’t afford it. So it was either attend the public school or Skeels Baptist School – not!
Literacy-chic: Of course how affordable tuition is depends on your area of the country, your mortgage and other expenses, your income, etc. To me $405 is affordable for two, $2,150 tuitions, although as I said that takes up all our disposable income. No vacation, no extras. But 0ne $2,150 tuition AND one $7,500 high school tuition is NOT affordable — not to speak of two high school tutions! If the tuition for that school remains the same for the next four years (hah) it would cost $30,000 to send my daughter to high school. That’s insane. Of course, that is still cheap for private school — a neighbor of mine has kids who go to a private school that costs more than $7.000 for elementary school.
Yes, “affordable” is relative. I grew up below the poverty level; I know this. And I only afforded the $300/month because of financial aid. I do not have a mortgage–I rent. My income is abyssmally low as a grad student, and my husband’s is not much better considering his qualifications. What IS a vacation, anyway? $200 instead of $300 would have been much, much better for me. The tuition I paid, considering the area in which I live and the quality of education my 4th grader received was outrageous. And the teachers are very poorly paid and the facilities should be condemned. Textbooks aren’t great, either.