Catholic Schools: Time for a new model?

John Roberto's program are oriented to a parish level for multi-generational and family catechesis and could be a great model for more parishes. I am a professional educator who has worked at both Catholic and public school systems as both teacher and administrator. Having experienced Catholic education myself at elementary, high school, and university levels, I can attest to the fact there there was no comparison between the "old" model of daily instruction in the faith, and the "catechism" classes on Saturdays for the public school children. Current religious ed parish programs are still dismal, in my opinion. They rely on volunteers who are good-willed, but very limited in education and pedagogy.
The old model no longer is feasible or necessarily desired anymore. I agree---each parish should give higher priority to who is its faith formation director and what are her/his priorities? My experience is that too many parish priests abandon their responsibilities for up-grading all parishioners' faith education and over-rely on their faith formation director's limited knowledge and experience.

I am a parish priest in a large archdiocese who taught in the parish school in several parishes. I then left the parish and went into one of our regional high schools and taught for 12 years.
With that said, I find Tom Robert's thought on having well paid and well instructed teachers instead of our limited number of schools very refreshing. I have been shot down everytime I put forward that I would close all Grammar Schools and replace it with a well planned catechetical program with paid and trained teachers.
If possible, we need to lower tuition and have a dual level of catechesis on the high school level - both high schools and catechetical programs would have a mandatory aspect if we moved Confirmation to Junior Year and required a passing grade to be confirmed. The days of "numbers" alone has to end.

I am a Catholic educator, having taught in two separate Catholic schools, one in a small, rural community and one in a large metropolitan area. The one in the large metropolitan area had an ever-increasing tuition and a declining enrollment of students being served in a crumbling facility. The parish had about 700 families, the school had about 300 kids PK - 8. Weekly collections in the parish hovered about $8,000 per week. The parish was divided, those families of the school loved the school, those families who sent their children elsewhere did not care about the school, those parishioners without kids or whose children were grown and gone, were tired of hearing about the school.

By contrast, the school in the small, rural community had free tuition for Catholic students whose parents were members of the parish. The parish had about 150 families, with about 90 kids in the school, PK - 8. Weekly collections were around $3500 per week. This parish school could afford to have free tuition because the parish implemented a tithing system of stewardship, everyone who had kids in the school was expected to contribute a specified amount each week to the parish. This was a process that worked very well. It required the pastor to get to know his people very well, meeting with each family with children in the school at least yearly to discuss the coming year's tithes. Thanks to the great generosity of the parish, there was also a small fund for students whose parents were in need; the family had to make some contribution, while the parish made up the remainder. In addition, the parish built a brand-new, state of the art, school building, fully financed before construction even began. The parish revolved around the school, even the older and single parishioners regularly attended school functions and fundraisers.

Both schools were served by dynamic, faithful pastors (the big-city parish had its pastor reassigned, and the school's population dropped precipitously in the years following; the new pastor was more liberal than his predecessor and that led to parents withdrawing their kids). Both schools had excellent faculties and staff members. However, the small school also had parents willing to make serious sacrifices, and they recognized that the teachers made similar sacrifices to be there (my starting salary was $17,000 per year; five years later, I made $19,500).

My point is that when all sides are willing to sacrifice and get involved, pastor, parishioners (parents and those without kids alike), teachers, staff, the school will thrive. When the parish is willing to place the school at the forefront of its ministries and its actions, the school will thrive.

I believe that there needs to be a restoration of the centrality of Catholic education in the life a parish. After all, Catholic schools are the primary tool by which the Church fulfills the Lord's command to "go and teach all nations". This is not to say that other ministries are not also important, but the education of the future of the Church, the young people, must be central in every parish. If that were the case, I honestly believe that we would see a renaissance in Catholic schools. Until then, we will continue to struggle.

I am reading these comments carefully and wanted to mention that the current poverty line as of 2010 for a family of four with two children under 18 is $22,350. Given the commenter's figures above, even if they are from several years ago, any future plans for "well-paid" catechesis should include annual teacher salaries well above that figure, especially if significant training is involved. The original post mentions the "virtually no cost" option of women religious as educators. If only our church realized that those free-labor days are never going to come again, in part because women have far more career options than they used to!

If parishes set about supporting teachers financially and competitively with public school systems, so that they could support themselves and their families, it would be a big step toward effective catechesis, whether in schools or in separate parish programs. Unfortunately, paying women what their work is worth seems to take a back seat to praying for vocations. (No offense to male teachers who are also vastly underpaid in the Catholic school system, but women have been and remain the vast majority of elementary Catholic teachers.)

I would like to add two observations to this conversation.

First, it is possible today for a diocese to support a Catholic school system and, indeed, make it available to every Catholic child who wishes to attend. The Diocese of Wichita has a system of 38 Catholic elementary and high schools currently educating about 11,000 children. Every one of those schools is tuition-free to Catholic students. To learn how they are doing this see the 12-page report beginning here: http://www.setonpartners.org/userfiles/file/catholic_schools_08.pdf#page=22.

Second, as someone who is in his 7th year teaching religious education (or CCD, as it is called elsewhere) at the parish level I know how difficult it is to get entire families involved in catechetical programs. "Really qualified, fully trained and well paid instructors" can devise all the excellent programs in the world (and some already have!), but these programs are useless in the face of the apathy one finds in far too many parents today.

One quick example: While teaching the Precepts of the Church to a recent class of nine 7th graders I learned that three attended Mass regularly with their families, one came only when it was her turn to serve, and the other five might make it on Christmas and Easter. In doing some follow-up with their parents I found that most knew they should be attending Mass but they had "scheduling problems." (Our parish has two Masses on Saturday evening and three on Sunday morning.)

At least some of the apathetic parents are sending their kids to religious ed where catechists like me have a chance to teach them something. But the 60-to-90 minutes we have each week are simply a poor substitute for the religious instruction they could be receiving in a good Catholic school. Why? Well, some folks in the Diocese of Tulsa have answered that question far better than I ever could. See the last 4 paragraphs here, beginning with "CCD programs will never be enough": http://www.dioceseoftulsa.org/section.asp?secID=181