Newspaper Page Text
THE BULLETIN
Saturday, August 20, 1960
•REGISTER' SURVEY
Continue All Grades,
Say Superintendents
By Msgr. John B. Ebel
A SAMPLE survey conducted by the Register
for this Special Education Supplement re
veals that the vast majority of archdiocesan and
diocesan superintendents of education through
out the U S. are in favor of continuing all grades
in Catholic schools. More than 30 responses—from some
of the largest urban archdioceses and from every other
type of diocese in the U.S.—were almost unanimous in
declaring that the Church must continue to try to pro
vide Catholic education at every level.
Cardinal Albert Meyer of Chicago, the archdiocese
with the nation’s largest school system, comprising
335 000 pupils, has gone on record as opposed to the
serious consideration of dropping any grades. In cases
were it is impossible to provide sufficient room for
children in all grades, he called for carefully controlled
experiments on restricting classes to upper grades.
Those who did advocate restriction of grades in
the ‘Register’ survey—about one-tenth of the total—
were in favor of dropping the lower grades. Catholic
parents, they declared, should assume more respon
sibility for the religious training of children in these
tender years.
Educators in areas which have not experienced great
urban growth in the past decade declared they were
faced by little or no problem. All the children, they
said, could be taken care of in all the grades, provided
proper support and co-operation are given the school
system.
Interesting Comments
There are many interesting comments. Most said it
better to have the “largest possible nucleus” of Cath-
olics who have received a full school education, rather
than have all Catholics get only a partial training. The
general opinion seems to be that the Church is in tem
porary difficulties, but that with continued effort the
situation can be righted and all, or almost all, Catholic
children can be provided with a complete Catholic
education. . ,, , ,. , .
At least, it is thought that this is the goal that must
be held up and that every effort must be made to
attain it. .
The Register questionnaire—mistakenly, it seems
mentioned as one alternative the retaining of all grades,
in the hope of producing an “elite leadership. This
idea of “elite leadership” was almost universally de
plored. Children of all levels and of all aptitudes must
be provided with a full Catholic education, it seems,
not just a favored few.
Our schools, pointed out one reply, must produce
leaders not only among the “intellectuals, but among
the truck drivers, mechanics, and sales girls.” The same
superintendent adds: “I see no reason to panic about the
present situation, but rather to make the best of it
educationally.” ...
Another superintendent says that to break the
Catholic school program by eliminating certain levels
would do a serious harm to it.” He adds that there can
be no “selectivity,” lest the rejected children be made
to seem second-rate citizens of the Catholic community,
and adds that the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine
can do much for those who cannot attend Catholic
schools. , . .
The intense desire of Catholic parents to have
their children in a Catholic school, says another, will
see us through the problem. ,
“Are we really doing all that is now possible, asks
another educator, “in the way of fund raising, econom
ical administration, and the encouragement of voca
tions in order to provide a Catholic education for the
maximum number of children?”
“If we concentrate on the upper grades, protests
one, “it will take three times as much money for the
same number of pupils.”
In casting his vote for continuation of all grades,
a superintendent says: “All other attempts have failed.
The completely trained Catholic Americans have given
the Church vigor and vitality, and we need that same
guarantee for the future!”
The ideal of the Councils of Baltimore, ‘every
Catholic child in a Catholic school,” says one com
ment, is far from realized. But it will never be real
ized if we do not keep trying to achieve it.
No Surrender!
“It would be a tragic condition in our land,” declares
the superintendent of education in one of the large
metropolitan archdioceses, “if the Catholic Church were
to surrender its forces in the face of opposition; rather
should the Church concentrate on the tremendous value
of the school in the social and religious crisis that is
obviously approaching us.”
A priest in one of the dioceses comments that in
the parishes which can afford schools, the Catholic
children are being taken care of. In other parishes,
which cannot afford schools, curtailment of grades
would do nothing to solve the problem.
Development of a strong Confraternity of Christian
Doctrine program to care for those children not in
Catholic schools is universally commended, though it
is less urgent in some sees than others. “We must learn
to think and speak not of the ‘church and school,’ ” says
one commentator, “but of the church, school, and Con
fraternity.’ ”
Bold New Plans Proposed for Solution
Of Problems Facing Parochial Schools
. . • r i • ■». _ in Lxinrt nimilc tn thpCP CPEtva
Father McCluskey
In an address delivered at the conference of dioc
esan school superintendents of the National Catholic
Education Association April 21 of this year, the Rev.
Neil G. McCluskey, S.J., education editor of America,
cited four critical challenges facing Catholic educa
tion. They are: 1. The growth in population, 2. the
demand for excellence, 3. the changing attitude of
the American community toward things Catholic,
and 4. the larger role of the laity in the Catholic
school. .
In the portion of the address printed here, fa
ther McCluskey proposes, not a plan for practical
and immediate action, but thought patterns to help
meet future problems.
By Rev. Neil G. McCluskey, S.J.
T he CHALLENGES under discussion require
some basic retooling in contemporary Catho
lic education. The three major modifications that
I am going to suggest will concern administra
tion, finance, and emphasis.
The parochial school
as an independent, par
ish-controlled, and par
ish-financed operation
is an anachronism. For
the greater good all
parochial schools
should become dioc
esan schools. This will
mean of course that
pastors will have to
yield control over their
schools. We speak
loosely of a Catholic
school “system,” but
only a few dioceses ap
proach education sys
tematically. Close your
eyes for a moment and
visualize what the dif
ference would be (in
cluding the change in
your own work-load!)
if all the parish schools
were welded into a
single diocesan system.
Take the planning of schools. A central planning
board would allocate schools and priorities in build
ing, would pass on additions, consolidations, and sup
pressions of schools. ,
Special schools would be located at strategic points
in the diocese. In these schools the exceptional chil
dren would at long last get their full due There would
be special schools and staffs for the mentally retarded
and physically handicapped. There would be a special
diocesan transportation provision for the handicapped
who attend regular schools. College preparatory
schools, terminal schools, pre-professional and technical
schools would likewise be centrally located for patron
age by youngsters of the entire area or diocese.
Plan lor Teachers
Let us turn to the teacher. Under this plan all
teacher contracts would be arranged by the diocesan
office. Salary scales, assignments, transfers, replace
ments, promotions would be handled on a diocesan
level by a central office. Health benefits, tenure, re
tirement, sick leave, and pensions would be provided
for in the same way. . ,
Curriculum planning and experimentation, teacher
accreditation, standards for promotion, advanced place
ment - selection of textbooks, enforcement of library
standards—all these important items would now come
under a diocesan central office. Should 10 schools m
the diocese offer Russian language courses in the sixth
grade? Can Latin or French be started in this partic
ular school at the fourth-grade level? Is there profit
in accepting a long-term loan for science equipment
under provisions of the National Defense Education
Act?
New Method of Finance uj t
Finance comes next. Tuition is now abolished. In its
place there is a school tax levied on every wage-earn
ing family in the diocese, a plan which in some dio
ceses is partially in operation. The present system of
financing Catholic school education is unbelievably
archaic, obsolete, and inefficient. In this matter we are
a good 100 years behind the public schools whose archi
tects long ago argued successfully that the burden of
support for the commonly used public schools was a
total community responsibility.
Henceforth, let the education of the youngsters
in the rich suburban parish and the declining down
town parish be paid for out of the same central fund.
And if private schools directed by religious orders
want to be supported in this way, it is only proper
that they become an integral part of the diocesan
system.
Once a central control comes over the parish schools,
intelligent planning for expansion can take place.
Economy can become the keynote. Facilities can be
shared as much as possible. Several neighboring schools
can make use of expensive facilities like auditorium,
gymnasium, high-school home economics departments,
and industrial arts wings. If needed, school buses can
be made use of to bring pupils to these centrally lo
cated facilities.
Area of Emphasis
The third step is emphasis. There is an ideal of
Catholic education, sometimes summed up in the
phrase, “Every Catholic child in a Catholic school.”
Yet, paradoxically, the greater our Catholic school
population grows, the further we seem to be from
this ideal. Better than 5,000,000 of today’s Catholic
children—at least two-thirds of those of high school
age and more than 40 per cent of those of elementary
school age—are not in a Catholic school. As things
stand now, they are not going to get even a partial
Catholic schooling, and the number of the unaccom
modated each year will be larger.
A blunter way of stating this point is that in ef
fect we are turning our backs on one-half of our
Catholic children as far as their formal schooling
goes. Does this not indicate the imperative need for
rethinking the present pattern of Catholic education?
In those areas where the Church cannot educate
all our young people all the time, is it not the part of
wisdom to concentrate our human and fiscal resources
so that we can provide some years of Catholic school
ing for all and on the more influential levels of school
ing? _
The school, which in 1884 the Third Plenary Coun
cil of Baltimore decreed was to be erected near each
church “within two years,” was an elementary school
in those days the kind of school wherein were satis
fied the educational needs and ambitions of most Amer
icans. Seventy-six years later we are still preoccupied
with putting up elementary schools while the focal
point in the pattern of American education has moved
up the ladder.
The high school has long since replaced the gram
mar school as the focus of loyalties and educational
influences for the average American. But even this is
changing.
Rise of Junior Colleges
The normal pattern of American publicly sup
ported education is beginning to cover a 13th and I4th
year or junior college. In 1959 one of every four col
lege students began higher education in a junior col
lege. Within a few years, at least one-half of the be
ginning college class in many states will be in junior
colleges.
Already there are some 600 junior colleges in the
country, and each year more are springing up. So
far only 18 junior colleges are under Catholic direc
tion. In our past concern for the elementary school
we neglected the high school. Will we now neglect
the junior college and miss another turn in history?
If we are forced to abandon a section of formal
Catholic schooling, it ought to be the first six grades.
To achieve maximum results Catholic education should
start with the seventh grade or junior high school,
continue through senior high school and include the
13th and 14th grades or junior college. A network of
junior colleges under diocesan and religious-order
directions would mean that many tens of thousands of
Catholic young men and women, at a critical stage of
intellectual maturation, would have at least some access
to what few of them will ever discover elsewhere, the
philosophical and theological treasures of Christian
humanism as well as the great documents of Catholic
social thought. This is no small gain.
The thought of dropping some of the elementary
grades distresses many people who feel that this is
abandoning Catholic children during their early for
mative years. But what alternative do they propose
to provide some formal Catholic schooling for 1970’s
six or seven million Catholic youngsters of elementary
and high school age and 1,000,000 young people of col
lege age in 1970 who are destined to be left out.
Challenge tor Parishes
Perhaps these people also underestimate the capa
bility of our parishes and Catholic families to adjust
to a new challenge. There is no valid reason why
priests and parents could not make more than ade
quate provisions for the religious training and influ
ence of our children.
This plan is frankly an alternative which falls
below the ideal, yet it comes to grips with the re
alities, among them the limitation on the resources
of the American Catholic people. To speak this way
is not “pessimism,” or “defeatism,” or ‘ disloyalty.
It is simply realism. .
It would be far more in keeping with the spirit oi
the Council of Baltimore to study the objectives the
Bishops had in mind in legislating for separate schools,
and then determine whether these goals are being
achieved through our concentration on elementary
rather than high school and college education. Are
objectives like the strengthening of the faith and the
development of lay leadership in society and the mul
tiplication of vocations best realized by clinging to the
educational pattern of 1884, or rather do the times
demand some basic reorganization? ‘
Imagination and courage have marked the growth
of Catholic education in the United States. May the
Holy Spirit insure a sufficiency of these commodities
during the next decades, so that we can make the right
adaptations for the survival and growth of Catholic
education.