The long term decline of Catholic schools and the pandemic

[Mick]

Catholic school attendance peaked at 5.2 million in the early 1960s and has declined ever since to the present-day 1.7 million.  The pandemic is exacerbating the decline as families can no longer afford to support schools that aren’t in session.

I suppose I’m of several minds about Catholic schools.  I’ve attended both public schools (through 6th grade) and Catholic schools (from 7th grade through college).  My wife attended very strong public schools in Saratoga throughout her life, and taught in Palo Alto Unified School District.  So a couple of thoughts:

1. The discipline was much different going from public to Catholic school.  No rowdiness in the classroom, teachers respected, the bad kids were punished — hard.  I made the decision to put my sons in parochial schools when my home was redistricted into a marginal public school district.  You know the guy who sold all the drugs in your high school?  That guy, from my high school, taught third grade at our newly redistricted school.
2. The training is much better.  At the same time, after my experiences and the experiences of my sons, my general sense is that Catholic schools tend to do really well with kids in the 40% to 90% range.  They don’t serve special needs kids well, and they don’t do well with the top 10%.  Both groups are essentially on their own.
3. The emphasis on service, donation (of time and money), charity is laudable.  But the overall emphasis lessens the emphasis on true achievement.  Or as a friend of mine puts it, “Catholic schools are great at turning out middle managers.”  They work hard, they typically don’t have ambition for upper management, to the extent that they’re entrepreneurial, the businesses tend to be small.
4. The cliche’ is that they’re not particularly diverse and that was probably true some decades ago.  That hasn’t been my experience at all, particularly at the high school level.

So I suppose I don’t really know how I feel.  Overall, they were pretty strong.  They were definitely safe.  They taught discipline, hard work, rigor, charity and service in a way that public schools don’t.  But they’re genuinely mystified when it came to true achievers and students who required more help (although I will also commend the Catholic schools that I’ve known — if a kid is struggling, the safety  net was vast and strong, and basically nonexistent in the public schools).

A Growing Number of Catholic Schools Are Shutting Down Forever

[cardcrimson]

Daughter just started at an all girls Catholic school. So far, 100% virtual thanks to Newsom. The school seemed to have a great hybrid plan in place until it was nixed by the czar. So far, distance learning seems to be going well. Some sports, though the smoke has canceled about half the sessions. They seem to have plenty of money as they’ve just opened a new academic center and a new athletics complex. Both outstanding.

[Rocky17]

When I hit submit it posted twice.  Strange.

 

• This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by Rocky17.

[Rocky17]

My oldest grandson’s public HS just started a week ago.  Parents choice as to whether students can go virtual or attend live.  So far 80% are attending, masks in class and walking to class until seated.  Barriers in place between students.  No covid cases reported thus far.  Expectations are that virtual students on balance will not be as successful academically.  We will see.

The evidence that younger adults, children et. al. have an almost non existent likelihood of serious covid symptoms notwithstanding, we know the reluctance to listen to the scientific evidence in blue states is political and designed to hurt the Trump economy and affect the election.  Blatantly transparent.

And these progressive whack job governors like Newsome and mayors like DiBlasio really expect business people and residents to return to permanent residence after the election, especially after defunding and defanging the police?  Dream on.  Parts of SF look like a war zone and NYC downtown seems deserted relatively speaking.

 

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