On June 16, seven Roman Catholic schools in Washington, D.C., were transformed into seven public charter schools by a unanimous vote of the D.C. Public Charter School Board. It’s a conversion story – but in reverse.
The archdiocese is creating faith-based schools without the faith.
Establishing a charter requires the schools to shed its religious identity because “religious charter school” is according to politicians a First Amendment oxymoron. Although free from some regulations that apply to traditional public schools, charters are still public schools which means they must be nonsectarian — neither promoting nor denigrating religion.
Quick question: Since when does godlessness mean neutrality?
So why do people of faith leap to schools of no faith? In the case of the Washington Catholic schools, it’s about the bottom line. Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl told The Washington Post, the archdiocese simply didn’t have the resources to keep all those schools open. So they applied for money and gave up just one itty bitty thing to get it -God.
Take the Catholic out of Catholic schools and what’s left? According to the archbishop, “They will have the same teachers, the same kids, the same environment. There will still be a level of value formation.”
But where do the values come from in a godless school? It seems to me that it leaves a spiritual vacuum which will be filled by our ever spiraling culture.
Signing off with this quote from a book that won’t be in the library of these schools: “No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Matthew 6:24
June 27, 2008 at 2:21 pm
It’s better than the Church abandoning all these children to the public schools where gang violence is awful, isn’t it?
June 27, 2008 at 2:35 pm
No, they won’t have the “same teachers, the same kids, the same environment” despite what they have decided to believe. And there won’t be any formation, they have to leave that behind to take the money. They will become public schools and everything that public schools have to deal with in DC will come their way. What a shame.
Sharon
June 27, 2008 at 2:38 pm
This is truly a sad development, but I don’t see the “take the money, leave the faith” angle. Based on a story in the Washington Post, I don’t see this as a choice between God and money, but between closing the schools and keeping them open.
The story I read in the Washington Post didn’t mention that the Archdiocese applied for money. Based on the Post story, the Archdiocese of Washington isn’t getting any government money. They are turning the schools over to a secular non-profit charter organization to run the schools. The schools will be funded by the District of Columbia. What money is the Archdiocese getting?
True, the Archdiocese will save the money formerly spent on running the schools, but they would have anyway, because the schools would have been closed if they hadn’t been converted to charter schools.
True, these children will no longer receive a Catholic education, but they wouldn’t have anyway, because the schools would have closed and the children would be going to non-charter public schools.
I seems that the problem is that the Catholic people of the Archdiocese of Washington don’t want to support the Catholic schools. It’s a reasonable question: should there be Catholic schools if the people don’t want to support them?
Bob Hunt
June 27, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Why is the Archbishop pushing a secular school saying, “They will have the same teachers, the same kids, the same environment. There will still be a level of value formation.”
Does he believe you can have the same values without Christ?
June 27, 2008 at 8:50 pm
People have moral integrity in their hearts and minds without a school board’s indoctrination scheme.
Pike County, PA’s Warden of the Year and his cronies insist in the .39 cent PCCF Inmate Manual that you must believe in the invisible man who watches, records and judges everything you do, or else no parole recommendation.
The invisible man is God, and Warden of the Year thinks He watches all because that’s what paranoid people believe – that they are always being watched. They project that paranoia on others in hopes it drives them mad enough to do his bidding.
There isn’t any invisible God or man who watches and judges all things – thankfully. People have moral integrity in their hearts and minds without a Warden or County Jail commission’s foul-minded indoctrination schemes.
Some Pikers simply ain’t right.
-PM
Ars longa, vita brevis
June 27, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Answer me this. Are people even aware that kids go to Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas for Free
http://richleonardi.blogspot.com/2008/04/tuition-free-catholic-schools.html
Why not D.C. If not Free why are they having to close down schools that I expect has more Rich ALumni than this Diocese!!!
June 28, 2008 at 1:43 am
James H.,
It does seem strange to me that Catholic children in some dioceses can attend Catholic schools without their parents having to hand over their first and second-born children to do it. I think a lot of it is a lack of will to make Catholic education available to a broad cross section of students and partly because a good Catholic education costs money.
Only 20 percent of the Catholic children in the local see in this diocese benefit from a Catholic education and they are largely represented by those who have the means to send them there without asking for tuition assistance. Believe me, it is definitely frowned upon if you do ask for help. You’re hurting the parish budget if you do (and honestly at least a third of our parish budget goes to support 30 or 40 families who send their kids to Catholic schools in a parish that has around 600 registered households…that’s pretty steep).
Roughly 18 percent of the families in the area who send their children to Catholic schools ask for tuition assistance above and beyond the basic deduction all Catholic families who send their children to Catholic schools are given in this diocese. When these families apply for the assistance, they are faced with filling out a 15-page form that details EVERYTHING they have been spending their money on for the past year including beer and cigarettes (because if you ask for help, you should be treated like a welfare queen, right???) They then meet with a Catholic Charities counselor who scrutinizes each family budget and makes recommendations to each family as to how they might trim their expenses and therefore hopefully ask for less help the next year. A recommendation is then given to the pastors as to how much the Catholic Charities counselors feel each family would need and the parish pastor of the families asking for help decides what the parish can afford to offer. I can definitely understand why most families choose to send their kids to public school or homeschool in this diocese if their income is below a certain level.
I am tempted to think that the schools really don’t want blue-collar kids in their classrooms around here. We’re not a blue collar church anymore after all. I am also tempted to think that we’re grooming the next generation of big donors by giving their kids an education and opportunities above and beyond what the average Joe gets because they are not as likely to leave a million dollars to fund the next building project as someone who feels like they’re part of “the club”.
Catholic schools in our diocese are filled with the children from mostly wealthy one and two-child families. To send one child to primary school it costs $5,000 plus and for high school nearly $7,000. This does not include books, fees, or the numerous fundraisers that everyone is expected to be involved in to keep the schools running.
I am deeply saddened by the situation facing many Catholic schools, but unless more people value a Catholic education enough to give what it would take to offer a good Catholic education to the majority of Catholic students, Catholic schools will be primarily available to the select few…..that’s not a very Catholic way of thinking, but that’s the way it’s becoming.
June 28, 2008 at 7:04 pm
James H said…
“” Answer me this. Are people even aware that kids go to Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas for Free? [June 27, 2008 5:06 PM] “”
OF COURSE We the Peeps are aware! Because why we are aware? ANSWER: because
a) We’re not asleep, and
b)Title 45 USCS [United States Code Service] provides that there shall be no religious discrimination in the adminstration or choosing of which agencies implement social services authorized by Congress, as in the instant case, education.
As long as Catholics don’t indoctrinate (e.g. force prayer) during their providing of services authorized by Congress, courts are cool with it. Don’t you know anything, mon? Jeesh!
Carry on,
-Caveman Jones aka Al Uminium Mann
June 29, 2008 at 5:15 am
It seems to me that the Archdiocese could have consolidated some of the schools, sold off the property of the schools that were closed, and invest the proceeds back into the remaining schools. A stop-gap solution, perhaps, but at least it would have shown a commitment to the kids.
June 29, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Rich said…
It seems to me that the Archdiocese could have consolidated some of the schools, sold off the property of the schools that were closed, and invest the proceeds back into the remaining schools. A stop-gap solution, perhaps, but at least it would have shown a commitment to the kids.
Uh-huh (MS Money v2.0 ?) They Need Public Moneys, which doens’t grow on trees, to educate the chilluns, Padre.
-Pete Moss,
Dominus vobiscum
June 30, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Or this whole “7-school charter” might have been intended from the start to be a secret scheme to get a million dollars a year of DC public money to support 4 Catholic schools, by sacrificing 7 other schools, eliminating Catholic education from their curriculum in order to pay for Catholic education at 4 other schools.
The 7 schools might have the “same teachers, same kids, same environment,” but they also have an obligation as DC public schools to teach kids that they have the option to have an abortion if they suffer an unwanted pregnancy. Thanks, Bishop!
But there is a LOT of rent money available to support Catholic schools that remain Catholic.
Because this was such a sensitive case, the DC Public Charter School Board should have been especially vigilant about any potential conflicts of interest.
This is a hurry-up charter, completed in 3-4 months instead of the usual 12-15 months. There is an obvious conflict of interest among the DC Public Charter Board, the group running the 7-school charter, and the archdiocese. The group running the charter is made up of the same people who ran these schools into the ground for the archdiocese–same executive director, Mary Ann Stanton. In December 2007 the archdiocese pretended to select this group to run the charter from among competing offers. Now this group, having won the “competition” to run the charter, had to turn around and negotiate with their old employers, the archdiocese, who “selected” them to run the charter, about the rent to be paid for the 7 parish school buildings.
The rental lease obligates the city to pay enough rent so that the 7 parishes can get half the rent money–and the other half goes to 4 parochial Catholic schools NOT part of the charter. That lease, which the DC Public Charter School Board approved in approving this hurry-up charter this month, in effect sets up a pipeline from DC taxpayers to 4 Catholic schools, to the tune of $1 million a year in taxpayer money to support Catholic schools that remain Catholic schools.
The DC Public Charter School Board failed to highlight this conflict of interest in having the charter school operator, beholden to the archdiocese, negotiating a lease with the archdiocese for rental of the 7 school buildings. An objective third party should have stepped in to review the lease.
The archdiocese makes no bones about the fact half the rent money paid for these 7 schools goes to support 4 Catholic schools that remain parochial Catholic schools. (The archdiocese told a newspaper, “We can do what we want with rent money.” See: http://www.examiner.com/a-1455763~Catholic_schools_to_benefit_from_charter_rentals.html ). Hmmmmm, there might be a lot of excess rent being paid for the 7 school buildings. An independent, objective third party could have investigated that, BEFORE the DC Public Charter School Board approved the charter and the underlying lease.
Let’s see something done about investigating this conflict of interest, these excessive rent payments, and the unconstitutional public support for Catholic Schools imbedded in this deal.
July 4, 2008 at 12:15 am
***
***
Proof there is no God nor Electro-perv
Do you like the idea of a guy watching and judging your every move; or were there things we did that remain undetected, can there be ie. in deep space? And what about electronic voyeurs named Evil Jesus who videotaped your toilet time at WalMart and sold it oversees? How are ya gonna like that, man? Maybe you should be flattered they like your legs so much when you dropped a log there.
It’s all good, now, isn’t it?
But the constant speed of light guarantees some things are never seen but by us. Ha ha, so we’re free – because if there are things we’ve done that remain undetected, there can never be judgment of them by a third party god. If the definition of God is one who sees all, then if no-one, especially He doesn’t see these undetected things, then there can be, is no god.
I would like to thank the Academy, Time Magazine, all the little, teeny, tiny folks, Parents and best girl Sue.