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Story by Beth Donze, Clarion Herald; screenshot courtesy of the Center for Education Reform
With the pandemic creating widespread economic havoc and upending children's education, regardless of the type of school in which they were enrolled, any federal stimulus package that earmarks funds for K-12 education must rightfully include assistance to private and parochial schools, as well as to struggling public school districts, insisted two of the nation’s top Catholic school leaders.
Thomas Carroll, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Boston, called on supporters of Catholic education to speak out against a provision that will bar nonpublic schools, except in limited cases for children with disabilities, from receiving their fair share of $60 billion in relief in the pending Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (also known as the HEROES Act).
“(The government) caused the problem! We didn't shut down the economy. They did,” said Carroll, noting that “nearly Great Depression levels” of unemployment will put Catholic education out of reach for many families in the coming year, should federal help not arrive to fund state tuition assistance programs.
Carroll, who made his case during a June 9 Zoom discussion sponsored by the Center for Education Reform, said the demographic potentially being cut out of this latest round of funding is significant. Nationally, non-public schools educate 10 percent of children in grades K-12. Moreover, Carroll said teachers and parents at those schools have done a commendable job of keeping education going during a crisis they were powerless to avert.
“I think they should make it right,” Carroll said. “They did damage to these families and they’re about to do substantial damage to these children (if non-public schools are left out of HEROES) – and they have an easy way to fix it. If they’re going to help out K-12 schools, it’s unconscionable to say, from a moral perspective, that some children are more valuable than other children, that if you go to a public school, somehow you’re more valuable.”
Carroll urged families of the more than 1.7 million students currently enrolled in K-12 Catholic schools to call their Congressional representatives, senators and the president to plead for inclusion in HEROES. Final passage of the stimulus package is anticipated sometime in July.
“Be authentic and tell them what the schools mean to your children and why you want them to be saved,” Carroll said.
Los Angeles Catholic schools deliver
The session’s other panelist, Los Angeles Catholic schools superintendent Paul Escala, oversees the largest Catholic school system in the United States and the third largest single school district in California, educating 80,000 students at 213 elementary schools and 51 high schools.
“Education is the true, great equalizer in society,” Escala said, noting that denying federal relief to families who have chosen a Catholic or some other type of non-public education for their children “undermines the American dream (and) the American promise.”
Los Angeles Catholic schools prove their societal worth through some impressive numbers: More than half of students exceed the 65 th percentile nationally in reading and math; and 81% of graduates attend college (with 95% of that number staying the course and graduating, in comparison to 78% of those hailing from California’s public schools).
“Catholic schools on the whole here in California are saving the California taxpayer $2 billion a year, and in a world where we’re seeing a $56 billion deficit in the state budget,” Escala said.
The superintendent recalled Catholic schools’ history of offering an excellent educational alternative to America’s immigrants, poor and children of color. One out of six students in Los Angeles’ Catholic schools are non-Catholic, and 78 percent are underrepresented minorities.
Escala commended his teachers, parents and students for quickly adapting to remote learning within 72 hours of the lockdown and getting more than 21,000 iPads into the hands of students who lacked in-home technology. Philanthropists stepped up to fill in the gaps and will continue to do so over the summer, he said. During the lockdown, Los Angeles’ Catholic schools dispensed 18,000 meals a day to any child in need at 40 school sites.
Catholic schools are tenacious, committed
“What we’ve experienced, as Catholic schools in America, is America’s story,” Escala said. “We’ve been knocked down and we’ve gotten back up. When we’ve been challenged, we’ve risen to the occasion. We’re a resilient community!
“You can ask anybody who ever went to Catholic school,” he added. “They will tell you, ‘It was tough; I was challenged; and as a result I’m a stronger person.’”
Looking to the fall, Escala hopes to have most students back in their physical classrooms, while adhering to state health guidelines: face coverings; distancing as much as possible, both indoors and outdoors; keeping students in small “cohorts” to minimize the mixing of groups; and frequent handwashing and sanitizing.
“I see our schools rising to the occasion,” Escala said, noting that parents will be key in mitigating the risk of spreading the virus. Catholic schools’ vaunted close connections with the families they serve will make it relatively easy for a school's administration to ask parents to take their children’s temperature before going to school and to practice good hygiene at home, he said.
“This is an ‘us’ conversation; this is not ‘me versus you’; it’s what we’re gonna do together,” Escala said. “We are telling every school: prepare for in-person (learning) but also prepare for distance learning, in case we hit a period of ‘safer-at-home’ orders.”
Favors livestreamed classes
Carroll, who heads Boston’s Catholic school system of 30,000 students, anticipates having a “blended learning” model in the fall in which some students will receive traditional, in-classroom instruction, while others receive the same instruction remotely and in real time, either from another section of campus or at home. He said livestreamed classes with “the teacher teaching,” rather than sending home packets, ensures that all students are getting the same instruction. He compared the set-up to watching a football game in the arena or on TV.
“You’re still seeing the same game,” he said.
No matter what shape classes take in the fall, Carroll said parental concessions inevitably will have to be made. For example, some parents might be asked to offer up their children’s “live space” on campus to youngsters whose parents cannot be home with them during the day and who cannot afford childcare.
“There has to be a sense of community and a sense of mission of why we’re doing this because some people are gonna be asked to make sacrifices,” said Carroll, who fears that if relief funds do not start making their way to financially strapped Catholic school families, we will see the highest number of school closures “in anyone’s recent memory.”
“We don’t have a shortage of people who want to send their kids to our schools; what we’re facing right now is enough parents who have the economic capacity to send their kids to our schools,” Carroll said.
“It’s a tuition-driven system – you can’t run Catholic schools (and pay teachers) if not enough people can pay tuition,” he said, predicting a “summer enrollment slide” when school families currently being buoyed by the paycheck protection program see those funds dry up, lose their jobs and create a new surge of unemployment.
Uncertainty over what school will “look like” also might discourage some families to commit to returning in the fall, Carroll added. In Boston, the first tuition installment is due in July.
“Do they want to start making payments in July, not knowing if school’s opening in September?” he asked.
An earlier federal relief package – the $3 trillion CARES Act – did provide for an equitable distribution of funds to non-public education institutions.
Beth Donze can be reached at [email protected].