Catholic
Education Some think taking public funding will alter identity of Catholic
schools
By JOHN ALLEN
Special to the National Catholic Reporter
As the national battle over vouchers
intensifies, two questions define the frontline: What is constitutional, and
what can privatization do to improve the quality of education in the United
States?
Within the Catholic church, meanwhile, another debate is emerging:
Do the benefits outweigh the liabilities?
"The inevitable consequence of public money is to secularize
schools," said Bishop Thomas J. Curry of Los Angeles. "We're determined to have
it both ways -- to have schools that are at the same time thoroughly Catholic
and also federally financed. But it won't work."
Curry, who leads the Santa Barbara Pastoral Region for the Los
Angeles archdiocese, has outlined the contours of this intrachurch debate. He
believes that vouchers, or any other system of public funding, have the
potential to compromise the Catholic character of church schools.
Further, he believes this possibility has been glossed over in the
push for public dollars.
"We've spent so much effort attempting to secure government
support that we have neglected the question of definition -- what exactly a
Catholic school should be," Curry said. "We're not discussing it because
there's too much emphasis on obtaining public assistance."
Curry is one of the few in leadership positions in the church
willing to break with the consensus in favor of vouchers. He is quick to point
out that he has no problem with vouchers for some inner-city Catholic schools,
where the mission is primarily to educate an under-served population.
For schools whose purpose is to evangelize in the faith, however,
he thinks public funding is inappropriate.
Such talk rankles many leaders in Catholic education. Curry's
comments brought a swift rebuke from Dr. Jerome Porath, superintendent of
schools for the Los Angeles archdiocese.
"How can anyone think that an institution that has made so many
sacrifices for so many years is now going to drop its mission just because the
government offers some dollars to families?" he asked. "It's troublesome to
many Catholic educators to hear the suggestion that they so lightly hold their
mission that the thought of more dollars would cause it to evaporate."
Nevertheless, the fear that state dollars may sow the seeds of
government intrusion speaks to many Catholics already worried about an erosion
of the Church's distinctiveness in the face of secular American culture.
"The church absolutely has no business taking government funds,"
said Llewellyn Rockwell, president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn,
Ala. Rockwell, a Catholic layman with strong views on church affairs, writes a
column that appears in The Wanderer, a conservative Catholic
newspaper.
"He who pays the piper calls the tune," he said, suggesting that
when church agencies receive government dollars, they face pressure to conform
to secular values.
The concern over Catholicity or the potential for public funding
to alter the Catholic character of church schools generally takes two forms.
One is a concern that public funding will erode religious identity, as seen in
the secularization of such colleges as Harvard and Duke, whose origins were
religious.
Most Catholic educators, however, are adamant that this will not
happen. "Before we went into it, we were clear that we would run the school the
way we always have," said Sr. Brigetta Waldron, OSU, principal of Archbishop
James P. Lyke School in Cleveland. The predominantly African-American school on
the southeastern edge of the city is a participant in the only voucher program
in the United States that currently includes Catholic schools. "If a day ever
came when we felt any pressure to abandon our Catholic identity, we would
withdraw," Waldron said.
The argument that public funding undermines Catholicity strikes
many Catholic educators outside the United States as odd, since America is
practically the only developed nation in the world that does not provide some
measure of public funding for church schools.
In Canada's Ontario province, for example, the state is the sole
funder of Catholic schools, and Catholic teachers and administrators are state
employees. Over 30 percent of Ontario's school-age population attends one of
the province's tuition-free Catholic schools.
"I've been in Catholic education for 25 years, and for all that
time we had some type of public funding," said Michael Moher, superintendent of
education for the Ottawa Catholic School Board. "It has never compromised our
Catholic identity."
"[Catholicity] is a caution, but if you have the ability to
control the curriculum and the ability to control the hiring process, you're in
good shape. The bishops should be quite comfortable with what's going on in
their communities," Moher said.
Sister of Notre Dame Phyllis Cook, principal of St. Columbkille's
Elementary School in South Central Los Angeles, agrees that putting the debate
in an international context should lessen some of the fear about Catholicity.
"Our congregation has sisters in Great Britain and Belgium, where the
government has always paid the teachers without any damage to Catholicity," she
said. "We can't be limited by fear of what might happen. We can't let
worst-case scenarios prevent us from taking advantage of opportunities."
While a wholesale abandonment of Catholic identity may be unlikely
under a voucher plan, some remain concerned about a whittling away of
Catholicity around the edges.
Los Angeles archdiocese's Porath, for example, draws a distinction
between two purposes Catholic schools serve: preparing students for the world,
which requires the best possible education, and evangelizing students in the
faith. The former, he said, has to be balanced against the latter.
So, if the government were to offer Catholic schools more
resources to enhance the educational experience of their students provided the
schools take the crucifixes off the walls, is that a deal Catholic schools
would consider?
"If our mission would be better served, we might consider it,"
Porath said. While Porath was quick to point out that such a move would be
contemplated only if the overall deal enhanced the Catholicity of schools, such
willingness to consider undoing what generations of Catholics have come to
regard as symbols of their schools' identity has some people nervous. "It's a
concern," said Sr. Maureen Doyle, principal of the Urban Community School in
Cleveland, a Catholic school that elected not to participate in the city's
voucher program. "There is a philosophical problem with government involvement
in a Catholic school," she said.
While Doyle said that Catholicity was not the reason the Urban
Community School opted out of the voucher program, she acknowledged it was on
their minds. "I do think Catholicity is an issue," she said.
The second form of the Catholicity debate is less concerned with
the specifically Catholic character of schools than it is with the features
that come with being private -- local control, flexibility and a spirit that is
more communal than bureaucratic. Scholars who have studied the operation of
large, state-funded educational systems regard this as a valid concern.
"If I were a strong supporter of Catholic schools, I'd be really
concerned about this issue," said Dr. Peter Cookson of Teachers College at
Columbia University. "If public dollars flow into Catholic schools, that means
the dollars have to be publicly supervised. There will be strings attached, at
a minimum in terms of things like civil rights policies. The state could assert
minimum standards for teacher training," he said. "In effect, the very quality
of a Catholic school that makes it attractive, its autonomy, could be
undermined."
Cookson pointed to a 1986 study by Donald Erikson, which showed
that when private schools receive state support, they tend to become more like
public schools. In Milwaukee, the limited experiment with private school
vouchers suggests some legitimacy to this concern.
"There have been subtle attempts to treat non-public schools like
publics," said Dr. John Norris, director/superintendent of schools for the
Milwaukee archdiocese. "Since voucher kids are students of the Milwaukee public
school system, this reasoning goes, the same rules should apply. We have to
fight to hold on to site-based management. ... It's the biggest strength of the
private sector."
Most Catholic educators, however, appear confident that this is a
struggle that can be won. "I'm not concerned about losing our character. This
can be worked on [if vouchers are approved]," said Wilma Elbouhnini, principal
of Verbum Dei High School in the Watts area of Los Angeles.
Leonard DeFiore, president of the National Catholic Educational
Association, believes that both concerns, the religious identity of Catholic
schools and their administrative autonomy, are legitimate.
"No matter how benign the legislation is when it's passed, you
never know what will happen 10 to 20 years down the line," he said. "When the
government provides dollars, regulation seems to follow."
Still, DeFiore believes that Catholic schools can protect
themselves against this possibility.
"If we have to choose, we must keep the essence of our Catholic
schools," he said. "We need to structure our internal financial management so
that we're able to walk away if it comes to that." The key, he believes, is
avoiding financial dependence on the state. As long as Catholic schools can do
that, he believes, they will be able to resist any pressure placed upon
them.
On this point, the international comparisons may not be so
heartening. Could, for example, the Catholic schools in Ontario walk away from
public funding if the situation called for it?
"Well, I suppose we could," Moher said. "But it would be
devastating. Let's hope it never comes to that."
National Catholic Reporter, March 28,
1997
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