Why significant? Because the Catholic schools are doing something very close to the president’s heart: they are achieving notable success in educating the poorest black and Hispanic students from the worst urban neighborhoods. A recent article by Sol Stern in the City Journal offers a truckload of statistics: minority children from similarly desperate family circumstances are less likely to drop out of parochial than public high schools, and more likely to go to college; they score higher on SATs and, according to another study, go on to earn 27 percent higher salaries. This is a success story largely ignored by a flagrantly secular press, and by a Democratic Party in the thrall of public-school teachers’ unions, which control 12 percent of the delegates to this week’s convention.
But, if the president is curious, he might take a look at St. Elizabeth’s School, just a few miles south of the convention hall in the shadow of Chicago’s notorious Robert Taylor Homes (the school, which won a foundation grant to run a 220-day schedule, begins its year in early August). The students at St. Elizabeth’s are almost all African-American, 90 percent non-Catholic, 89 percent from families below the poverty level. The tuition is $1,300 per year, although some receive scholarships and pay less (total cost per pupil is $2,400, subsidized by the archdiocese and private donations).
There is a large crucifix in the entry hall and the words THIS IS HOLY GROUND. Which it clearly is: children learn here. St. Elizabeth’s doesn’t offer miracles–its 400 students read and compute at about the 45th percentile–just steady progress and a nurturing environment. Several assumptions are made that are rare, if not impossible, in urban public schools. The first is that education is a spiritual mission. ““This is my ministry,’’ says Lynda Alexander, a non-Catholic lay teacher who spent three years in the public schools (and could nearly double her salary if she returned) and the last 10 in the Catholic system. The intensely spiritual nature of the school leads to a second assumption: the assumption of civility. When the principal, Jeannetta Terry, and I passed a fifth-grade class on its way to lunch, the students offered a cheery ““Good morning, Miss Terry.’’ There are strict rules here–no drugs, no gangs–and a genuine atmosphere of mutual respect (perhaps one child a year is expelled, Terry estimates; studies have shown the parochial schools have lower expulsion rates than public schools). The classrooms are quiet, orderly; the students enthusiastic. When I slipped into Ms. Alexander’s eighth-grade class, a grammar drill was in progress – and half the students had their hands in the air. And that is the most important assumption of all: that each child can succeed. There is no ““tracking’’ at St. Elizabeth’s; slow and fast learners study together. ““These are our children,’’ says Sister Maureen Carroll, the school’s director of development. ““Their potential is infinite. The Lord has touched each one.''
An argument is made, most notably by Albert Shanker of the American Federation of Teachers, that the Catholic schools shut out those with more limited potential – the hard cases, the disabled. There is some truth to this. St. Elizabeth’s won’t accept the severely handicapped (although more than a few students dumped into ““special education’’ by the public schools because of emotional or learning problems are admitted here, and do succeed). And the Catholic schools do tend to get those with more active, involved parents (although scholarship programs in several cities have shown surprising success rates for students, plucked from the public schools, whose parents are uninvolved). But Shanker’s bluff has been called by New York’s John Cardinal O’Connor, who has repeatedly offered to educate the lowest 5 percent of New York’s public-school students – at about one third the cost.
Cardinal O’Connor’s offer has been ignored. The Catholic schools have been largely ignored. The president will extol school uniforms, but has never, ever, acknowledged the system famous for the uniforms its students wear. The Democrats will expend great gusts of rhetoric, and spend billions, on programs like Head Start, which have far less impressive track records than the Catholic schools do – and yet the party will go to war against even the smallest inner-city school-voucher experiment. ““They are interested in protecting an institution, the public-education bureaucracy,’’ says Michael Guerra of the National Catholic Educational Association. ““We are interested in helping kids.''
Which could, unfortunately, serve as the epitaph for the political party that will gather in Chicago this week. The era of big government may be over, but the party of big government remains – and remains stubbornly devoted to a thick, dull, uninspired system that seems to exist for the benefit of its employees, not the public. Meanwhile, St. Elizabeth’s had to take an emergency loan to pay teacher salaries last year. ““We could use a little help,’’ says Sister Maureen. The address is 4052 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 60653.
