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The integration of life with religious truth and values
distinguishes the Catholic school from other schools. In their 1972 pastoral message on
Catholic education, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops outlined
educational objectives for carrying out the mission entrusted by Jesus to the Church he
founded:
Education is one of the most important ways by which the
Church fulfills its commitment to the dignity of the person and building of community.
Community is central to education ministry, both as a necessary condition and an ardently
desired goal. The educational efforts of the Church, therefore, must be directed to
forming persons-in-community; for the education of the individual Christian is important
not only to his solitary destiny, but also to the destinies of the many communities in
which he lives.
Catholic schools afford the fullest and best opportunity
to realize the threefold purpose of Christian education among children and young people. A
school has a greater claim on the time and loyalty of the student and his family. It makes
accessible to students participation in the liturgy and the sacraments, which are powerful
forces for the development of personal sanctity and for the building of community. It
provides a more favorable pedagogical and psychological environment for teaching Christian
faith. Only in such a school can they experience learning and living fully integrated in
the light of faith.
In preparation for the 25th anniversary of
this pastoral letter, in 1997, the American Bishops issued a statement committing
themselves to new goals "as a sign of affirmation of the principles laid down in that
pastoral." They expressed their "deep conviction" and "concern for the
importance of the Catholic schools." Based on the conviction that "our Church
and our nation have been enriched because of the qualify of education provided in Catholic
schools over the last 300 years… now we are called to sustain and expand this vitally
important ministry of the Church," their goals are that:
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Catholic schools will continue to provide
high-quality education for all of their students in a context infused with Gospel values.
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Serious efforts will be made to ensure that Catholic
schools are available for Catholic parents who wish to send their children to them.
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New initiatives will be launched to secure sufficient
financial assistance from both private and public sectors for Catholic parents to exercise
their right.
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The salaries and benefits of Catholic school teachers
and administrators will reflect our teachings as expressed in Economic Justice For All.
Catholic Schools As Faith Communities
Jesus, the rabbi and teacher, addressed his apostles for
the last time and charged them with the responsibility, "Go, teach all nations."
This invitation, command, and promise are the wellsprings of Catholic schools: an
invitation to know him more clearly and to live him most completely; a command to make
disciples by teaching his message and proclaiming his Good News; and a cherished promise
that he would abide with us in a community of believers until his second coming. The
educational mission of the Church is an integrating ministry embracing three interlocking
dimensions: the message revealed by God, which the Church proclaims; fellowship in the
life of the Holy Spirit; and service to the Christian community and the entire human
community.
More than 5 million parents truly believe that
Jesus "came that they may have life and have it to the full" (John 10:10), and
they search for that fullness of life for their children in Catholic schools. The Catholic
school is a "privileged place" to hear that invitation, that command, and that
promise. Next to the family, it is the most effective place for Christians to search the
inscrutable mysteries of revelation and to be assured that, even before the world was
made, God had decreed to call each person to life and prepare each person for the fullness
of life. In the Catholic schools, young people learn Christ’s commandment to love God
and one another. They are taught that this is the greatest of the commandments. The
Catholic school is a living testimony of millions of Christians that Jesus is alive in his
community and is continuing his promise to strengthen each "with the utter fullness
of God" (Ephesians 3:19).
Catholic Schools As Academic Centers
The Catholic school is an academic center. It is an
effective educational endeavor precisely because it is an integrator of faith and life and
culture. The Catholic school is unique because it is a religious community within an
academic community. As a school, it is a community of learners and teachers,
administrators and parents, staff and resource people. At the same time, it is a faith
community of Christian youth and adults who come together to make Christ present among
them in a special way. There is always a two-fold purpose in a Catholic school: learning
and believing. To be an exemplary Catholic school, there must be the proper blend of
learning and believing in the community.
The Congregation for Catholic Education in Rome explains
that a Catholic school is not simply a place where lessons are taught; it is a center that
has an operative educational philosophy, attentive to the needs of today’s youth and
illumined by the Gospel message. Neither learning nor believing should be neglected.
Rather, the very growth in human skills and learning can prepare people for a synthesis of
religious truths and a peak experience of believing. At the same time, the ever-deepening
of belief in the life, death, resurrection, and abiding presence of Jesus Christ is an
energy that builds the faith community but also binds an academic community together in
support, trust, interaction, dialogue, and love.
Although Christian life consists in loving God and doing
his will, intellectual works is intimately involved. The light of Christian faith
stimulates a desire to know the universe as God's creation. It enkindles a love for the
truth that will not be satisfied with superficiality in knowledge or judgment. It awakens
a critical sense which examines statements rather than accepting them blindly. It impels
the mind to learn with careful order and precise methods, and to work with a sense of
responsibility. It provides the strength needed to accept the sacrifices and the
perseverance required by intellectual labor.
The school must be concerned with constant and careful
attention cultivating in students the intellectual, creative, and aesthetic faculties of
the human person; to develop in them the ability to make correct use of their judgment,
will, and affectivity; to promote in them a sense of values; to encourage just attitudes
and prudent behavior; to introduce them to the cultural patrimony handed down from
previous generations; to prepare them for professional life; and to encourage the friendly
interchange among students of diverse cultures and backgrounds that will lead to mutual
understanding.
Catholic Schools: National Research
In 1982, researchers James Coleman, Thomas Hoffer, and
Sally Kilgore did a major analysis of data to identify the differences between public and
private schools. In their report, High School Achievement: Public, Catholic, and
Private Schools Compared, they reported three important findings: the students in
private schools learn more than those in public schools; the private schools are safer,
more disciplined, and have a more ordered environment than public schools; and public
schools are more internally segregated than the private school.
These differences were summarized by Dr. Donald A.
Erickson, a notable researcher in private education, who drew a significant implication
from the Coleman report, one which had been a keystone in his own research: that one of
the most distinguishing characteristics of private schools is the superior social climate.
In an article entitled, "The Superior Social Climate of Private Schools," he
states:
The private school teachers were more committed to
insuring that students learned. More time was spent on instruction in the essential
academic subjects. Every type of problematic behavior that Coleman examined was less
prevalent in private schools. Though the discipline was more strict, and though
"student rights" were not guaranteed by many legal safeguards that apply to
public schools, the private school students felt they were treated more fairly and had a
greater sense of control over their own destinies. Students were absent less. More
homework was assigned, more was done, and less time was spent in staring at television.
Parents were more supportive.
Dr. Erickson presented a conceptual model of this type
of school with four characteristics, the first of which builds on the high degree of
commitment of the parents, teachers, and students. They form a community with support,
enthusiasm, and volunteerism. They agree on goals, objectives, and priorities. They feel a
sense of "specialness" and service.
Catholic Schools: Impact of Communities
Coleman and Hoffer understood "functional
community" to give unity and support to people in an institution. They defined it as
"a community in which social norms and sanctions, including those that cross
generations, arise out of the social structure itself, and both reinforce and perpetuate
that structure."6 A functional community is "social capital":
that relationship between people that produces trust, which, in turn, creates an
atmosphere where more can be accomplished than when it is absent. The success of the
Catholic schools is linked to the existence of its functional communities—they are
communities of learning and believing.
Summary statements from their 1987 in-depth study
entitled, Public and Private High Schools: The Impact of Communities, underscored
higher achievement levels:
The Catholic schools bring about greater growth for the
average students in both verbal and mathematical skills than do public schools, but not in
science knowledge nor in civics where the two sectors provide comparable levels in
achievement growth for the average students.
The achievement growth benefits of Catholic school
attendance are especially strong for students who are in one way or another disadvantaged:
lower socioeconomic status, Black, or Hispanic. A corollary of this is that the benefits
are least strong for those who are from advantaged family background.
Catholic schools show a considerably less depressive
effect of these family deficiencies in achievement growth than do public schools; other
private (non-religious) schools show a greater depressive effect of these family
deficiencies on achievement growth than do public schools.
The dropout rate from Catholic schools is strikingly
lower than the rate from public schools. This reduced dropout rate holds both for those
who show no signs of problems as sophomores and for those who as sophomores are
academically or disciplinarily at risk of dropping out.
Coleman and Hoffer wanted a scientific explanation of
the low dropout rate in Catholic schools. They hypothesized that there would be a similar
explanation for the higher achievement in Catholic schools, fewer disciplinary programs,
and higher aspirations of Catholic school students. In essence, they found that the very
low dropout rate is evidence that the functional community surrounding the Catholic school
does provide social resources which keep the students from dropping out.
Catholic Schools and the Common Good
The study, Catholic Schools and the Common Good, published
by Anthony Bryk, Valerie Lee, and Peter Holland in 1993, planned to "examine the
distinctive features of Catholic schools and the ways in which these features combined to
form supportive social environments that promote academic achievement from a broad
cross-section of students." They wanted to subject the idea of a sense of community
"to rigorous specification and empirical scrutiny."
They asked the question, "What was it about
Catholic schools that fostered engagement in students and commitment in teachers?"
They identified the social behaviors and the key structural features of a communal school
organization as (1) a set of shared values among the members of the social community
(administrators, teachers, students, and parents); (2) a sense of shared activities, both
academic and non-academic in nature; and (3) a distinctive set of social relations among
school members fostered by two key organizational features: a diffuse teacher role and
faculty collegiality. They tested for possible "negative outcomes" (i.e., a
significantly internal focus that mistrusts the external) and found, through field
observations and statistical analysis, that communally organized Catholic schools are
quite diverse, lacking extreme "social closure."
Schools involves more than conveying the acquired
knowledge of civilization to students and enveloping in them the intellectual skills they
need to create new knowledge. Education also entails forming the basic disposition for
citizenship in a democratic and pluralistic society… Fostering such a commitment
makes serious demands on school. If they are to teach children how they should live in
common, they must themselves be communities.
What Makes A School Catholic?
Catholic schools aren’t there to make our young
upwardly mobile, nor to assure them of a wrinkle-free life, nor to offer them security.
They are there precisely to take all that away from them, to lure them to give up security
and come out onto the road. Any school that claims to embody the Gospel of Jesus Christ
must, by definition, make them the apostles they were ordained to be at baptism, an
apostleship they allegedly confirmed at Confirmation. Humanity is our
nature—it’s natural. Christianity is humanity-plus—it’s supernatural.
Christianity doesn’t ask us to be unbad—it asks us to be holy. We want to lead
our students, with ourselves, to acknowledge—humbly—that we are not God, and yet
we also acknowledge—proudly—that we have been chosen. That we are his sons and
daughters, peers of the realm. That we have been missioned, just as Jesus was missioned.
At this moment, Jesus has not hands but our hands. He has no hearts but our hearts. We are
his embodiment. This is the life-ideal a Catholic schools wants to present to its
students.
The call of the Christian is to serve, to be used,
especially by the undeserving. We have it from the highest authority that the only norm
for "the good life" is not how high our SAT scores were, how much money we made,
or how many times we got our names in the papers. We have it from Jesus himself that the
only question which will determine whether our lives were worth living is: "I was
hungry. I was thirsty. I was the one they called ‘nerd.’ What did you do about
that?"
If our young people find that Gospel message boring and
not unnerving, then they have never really heard the Gospel message. This is the
intimidating product we offer. And it is the touchstone by which our schools will be
judged Catholic or not. We need to challenge our young people to get over their boredom by
personal involvement, by risking to witness their faith not only to their peers, but also
to those with whom they work. We need to communicate more effectively to them that their
deepest hunger is for God and a real experience of love that is forever and forgiving. We
need to show them what a difference the Church has made in our own lives. Adolescents long
for community, friendship, identity, and a challenge, a task that will take them out of
themselves in the service of others.
Catholic students must be helped to understand the
profound relationship between faith and culture. They must be able to recognize the
positive and negative elements of our culture—to participate in the former and to
resist the latter. The obstacles to integral development rest on more profound attitudes
which human beings can make into absolute values.
Catholic Identity of Catholic Schools: Statement
of Beliefs
We believe that:
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The Catholic school is an integral part of the
Church’s mission to proclaim the Gospel, build faith communities, celebrate through
worship, and serve others.
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The commitment to academic excellence, which
fosters the intellectual development of faculty and students, is an integral part of the
mission of the Catholic school.
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The Catholic school is an evangelizing,
educational community.
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The spiritual formation of the entire school
community is an essential dimension of the Catholic school’s mission.
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The Catholic school is a unique, faith-centered
community which integrates thinking and believing in ways that encourage intellectual
growth, nurture faith, and inspire action.
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The Catholic school is an experience of the
church’s belief, tradition, and sacramental life.
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The Catholic school creates a supportive and
challenging climate which affirms the dignity of all persons within the school community.
Information in this article was excerpted from the
following sources:
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Catholic Schools for the 21st Century: Executive
Summary,
National Congress of Catholic Schools,
National
Catholic Education Association, 1992.
Distinctive Qualities of the Catholic School,
National Catholic Education Association Keynote Series, 1997.
To Teach As Jesus Did, National Conference of
Catholic Bishops, United States Catholic Conference, 1972.
What Makes a School Catholic?, National Catholic
Education Association, 1991.
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