Archdiocese of Washington gives away 7 failing schools
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- June
- 17
At a time when Catholic education is struggling just about everywhere, here’s an interesting development from Washington:
Seven Catholic schools are becoming secular charter schools next fall.
The Wash Post explains:
The Catholic schools, to be renamed and switched to a nonreligious academic program, will be operated by Center City Public Charter Schools, the nonprofit group selected by the Archdiocese of Washington. The group is an offshoot of the Center City Consortium, set up by the Archdiocese in 1995 to help financially fragile urban Catholic schools pool administrative costs and fundraising. Even with the consortium arrangement, the Archdiocese said, falling enrollment and mounting costs would force the closure of the schools unless they were converted to charters.
Earlier this year, Pearl River native Mary DeTurris Poust wrote an article for Our Sunday Visitor about the challenge posed to Catholic schools by charter schools.
After all, charter schools look and sound like private schools. But they get tax dollars and don’t have to charge tuition.
“You basically have an entrepreneurial, semi-private school that’s just absent any religious affiliation competing with the Catholic schools that have to charge tuition to make it, so it’s hard to compete on a level footing when the cost is zero to the parent,” Father Ronald Nuzzi, director of the Alliance for Catholic Education Leadership Program at Notre Dame, told her.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 12:36 pm by Gary Stern.
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The world of religion, we don't have to tell you, is vast. The purpose of this blog is for Stern to note, flag and comment on some of the more interesting religious developments on the scene – weighty and quirky, somber and laughable, far away and just down the road. He won't interpret Scripture, take sides in conflicts or judge anyone. But he will take advantage of the journalist's license to observe.
