Catholic parochial school education is on the ropes

[MillCreek]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/opinion/catholic-education-in-need-of-salvation.html

I thought this was a really interesting article, and I had no idea as to the sad state of affairs for Catholic parochial school education.  I think it can be a valuable alternative to poor-performing public schools and I hope they can fix their problems.

The Catholic high school near me seems to be doing just fine: a new campus and facilities and I think they have a waiting list, even at the $ 15,000 annual tuition.  I don't think they have any religious teaching there, however.

[AJ Dual]

Married clergy/nuns would fix it (And the overall general decline in parishes in general) with a complete 180 degree turnaround in ten years.

Everybody knows this. Rome says "no" so it is what it is. (shrug)

Aside from the biggie of being agnostic/soft-atheist, reason #23 I left the Catholic Church rather than be confirmed at eighteen.

[HankB]

I attended a parochial school in Chicago for grades 1-8. When I was there, total student enrollment was 600+; today, it's less than 250, mostly Hispanic/Latino/Mexican or whatever the acceptable term is today. They recently "found" me as I've received letters at home asking for alumni updates and suggesting that oh, by the way, wouldn't you really like to make a donation?

Last time I went to it, the school's website emphasized their "anti-racism" program rather than stressing academic excellence.

When I attended, there were both good and bad teachers, as you'd expect. Thinking back, the three worst teachers were all nuns (I truly believe one was mentally ill) and the three best teachers were then called "lay" teachers, i.e., regular people.

For the record, I've never heard even rumors of child abuse by a priest or anyone else at that parish . . . although there were some things that went on concerning management of parish finances that didn't set well with the community.