Category: Educational Choice

A story on today’s Morning Edition by Claudio Sanchez examines the future of the school system in New Orleans following the hurricane Katrina disaster. New Orleans school superintendent Ora Watson complains that charter schools are stepping in to fill the void left when public schools were cancelled for the remainder of this school year.

She says, “There are so many different agendas. The mayor has decided that the city can run 20 schools under a charter. We have individual schools going to individual groups saying, ‘Would you charter me?’ They’re picking the school district apart. This is a real, real frustration.” Of course it’s easy to see why this would be a “real frustrating” for someone with a vested bureaucratic interest in maintaining the pre-Katrina state of publicly administered education in New Orleans.

According to the report, Watson worries that New Orleans could be the “first urban school system in America to be taken over by special interest groups.” I assume she means special interest groups other than the National Education Association.

Listen to the rest of the report for other viewpoints on reconstructing education in New Orleans. In many ways, the disaster can be viewed as an opportunity to improve a broken and failing system.

It’s clear that superintendent Watson is ardently opposed to introducing a principle of freedom of choice and competition into the system. For more on how competition, rightly practiced, can work in the educational arena, see this interview with J. C. Huizenga, chairman of the National Heritage Academies.

A flap over religion in schools developed last week at Newark High School in Delaware. According to reports, “The principal of a public high school apologized to parents for allowing a Christian-themed assembly that featured two Philadelphia Eagles players, saying he was misled about what the presentation would cover.”

“Principal Emmanuel Caulk of Newark High School wrote in a letter that he expected the talk by players Tra Thomas and Thomas Tapeh to focus on ‘values, choices and challenges that adolescents face in today’s society.’”

But apparently the players were to talk about such topics without any reference to their own experience…since that experience is Christian. Caulk claimed to be ignorant of the fact that Tra Thomas is a founder and spokesman for Athletes United for Christ.

“What we’re trying to do is to help the kids make better decisions in life. I guess I understand,” why some people objected,” said Thomas, “because you have other religions there. But we’re not preaching to the kids.”

He continued, “I’m just trying to get them to identify with me, the person, rather than just Tra Thomas, the football player, so we can relate to each other better. And my Christianity is a big part of what I am.” What might have been an acceptable post-modern claim to individuality in other circumstances is not acceptable for a Christian, apparently.

The requisite outrage from the ACLU was reflected in a statement by Drewry Fennell, executive director of the of the Delaware chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union: “Organizations like this one across the country are gaining access to schools through the famous people and entertainment value and then using those opportunities to proselytize.”

More details and reactions to the event are available here.

The critical error of events like this in public schools rests on the assumption that you can have a morality based purely on secular humanism. And this further assumes that such a position is not reflective of any particular “faith” or “belief system.” All morality is founded on a belief system of some kind or another. To expect that Christians can talk about, in the principal’s words, “values, choices and challenges that adolescents face in today’s society,” without reference to Christianity is patently absurd.

Scottish theologian John Baillie insightfully relates the following: “The progress of modern thought seems every day to be making it clearer that between religion and naturalism there is no final resting-place in humanism. As regards anything we are in ourselves naturalism is true, and ‘a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast’. When man ceases to be rooted in God, he relapses inevitably into the sub-human.” The final choice can only be made between naturalism or religion (supernaturalism).

Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck discusses the necessity for a supernatural foundation for a coherent system of morality. He writes,

The only true alternative to the recognition of the supernatural, accordingly, is not a rationalistic deism but naturalism, i.e., the belief that there is no other higher power but that which is immanent in the present natural order and reveals itself [there]. But then one loses all warrant for believing in the triumph of the good, the ultimate victory of the kingdom of God, in the power of the moral world order. For the good, the true, the moral world order, and the kingdom of God are matters that have no power to realize themselves on their own. The hope is that human beings will bring supremacy and yield to the power of truth is daily dashed by disappointments. Their triumph is assured only if God is a personal omnipotent being who, in the face of all opposition, can lead the entire creation to the goal he has in mind for it. Religion, morality, the acknowledgement of a destiny for humankind and for the world, belief in the triumph of the good, a theistic worldview, and belief in a personal God are all inseparably bound up with supernaturalism.

The secular humanist myth of morality without religion, supernaturalism, or faith of some kind is exposed for what it is in instances like this one. The sad part is, of course, that these children desperately need to be taught moral truths, but the public school system is increasingly unable and unqualified to do so, because of institutional, legal, and personal barriers.

Perhaps Uncle Sam…

Interesting news from across the pond today. Our British friends seem to be making education a bit more ‘user friendly’. Education Secretary Ruth Kelly is proposing a system where “parents dissatisfied with local schools will be encouraged to set up their own…’The underlying principle is simple – freedom for schools and power for parents,’ said the education secretary.”

The Acton Institute has long promoted the idea that the primary responsibility for a child’s education lies with the parents. The recent proposal in England is an example of someone at least acknowledging that parents ought to be allowed the freedom and responsibility to make educational decisions for their own children.

…could take a lesson from John Bull.

Groups of parents concerned about underachieving schools can either ask the local authority to intervene – or else set out plans for the creation of their own school. If local authorities reject parents’ proposals, the parents can appeal for adjudication – which Ms Kelly says could lead to the government forcing local authorities to fund such new school projects.

The point is this: generally, when people are given opportunity (freedom), they can succeed more than when a government dictates to them how they will ‘succeed’. I would think this applies especially to education, where bureaucratic mandates can take a family only so far.

Federal involvement in education has grown steadily throughout the nation’s history, encroaching on what is still viewed by American’s as mostly a state and local responsibility. Kevin Schmiesing looks at a new book that examines U.S. education policy, the red tape and bureaucracy that has resulted, and the opposition to federal control that arose from parochial school administrators.

Read the full text here.

Following up on my blog from last Friday: Laura Bush mentioned Strake Jesuit Prep in her remarks last night to the annual Boehner-Kennedy Dinner, which raises money for DC Catholic schools. Here’s an excerpt:

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Catholic-school teachers and principals can be proud of their students, who are living the values that they’ve been taught …

At Strake Jesuit High School in Houston, the administration initially planned on welcoming 50 students from Jesuit High School in New Orleans. Now Strake is hosting more than 400 New Orleans students.

With Hurricane Rita bearing down on Houston, Strake may need assistance in turn.

The Bible has a lot to say about what it means to be a “neighbor.” School officials in Fulton County, Ga., may have finally begun to come to some understanding of this concept.

Until earlier this week, county officials had threatened to use the power of eminent domain to force the private Jewish Weber School to sell a 19-acre lot so that a new public elementary school could be built. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, “When Weber officials said they had no desire to sell the site, Fulton indicated in a strongly worded letter that unless Weber agreed by Monday to sell the property, the school board would use eminent domain to obtain it.”

When the Monday deadline approached, and Weber School refused to capitulate, the county officials did an about-face: “On Monday, Fulton Schools Superintendent James Wilson told Weber board president Steve Berman in writing and by phone that the district would no longer pursue the Weber property and that he regretted the misunderstanding.”

“It is in our interest to be a good neighbor,” he said.

What’s a good first step to being a good neighbor? “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:17 NIV)

Deal W. Hudson of the Morley Institute reports on an address by a Vatican official. The story is also reported here:

Vatican Official Explains What Makes a School Catholic

His name is one you should know. Archbishop J. Michael Miller is the Secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education in the Vatican. That means he helps oversee Catholic education from kindergarten to college and graduate school throughout the world.

I met with the self-effacing Archbishop over breakfast before his lecture at a Conference on Catholic education co-sponsored by the Catholic University of America and the Solidarity Association of Atlanta, Georgia. He left the presidency of the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas to take his post sixteen months ago. After arriving, Miller was “surprised to discover that only twenty Episcopal conferences in the world had approved ordinances implementing Ex Corde Ecclesiae.”

When asked if the situation was improving he was upbeat, “Canada and Australia are close to finishing their ordinances and India and Mexico have them well underway.”

But there is better news. Since the publication of Ex Corde Ecclesiae, over 1,300 new institutions have been created in India. An abundance of new growth is also found in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa, Mexico, and Chile. “Overall the future looks promising,” he adds, “because of new growth in Catholic institutions where they are most badly needed.” All the data, he says, is chronicled in a new book published by his Congregation, unfortunately only in Italian.

Miller’s address to the conference turns out to be the finest I have ever heard on Catholic education. His words belied the blandness of the title, “The Holy See’s Teaching on Catholic Education.” Rather than citing text upon text from Vatican documents, he cut to the heart of the matter, telling the audience that he wanted to answer the question, “How do you know if a school is really Catholic.”

He offered the following five benchmarks of a Catholic education as the essence of Vatican teaching on education. Miller called them the “marks of a Catholic education.”

Although these criteria apply mainly to K through 12 education, Miller insisted they could easily be adapted to college and university education by the addition of a criterion on excellence in scholarship.

A Catholic school should be:

1. “Inspired by a supernatural vision.” Schools are about preparing students for “heavenly citizenship.”

2. “Founded on a Christian anthropology.” Education is the “perfection of children as images of God.”

3. “Animated by communion and community.” Schools should have the collaboration, interaction, and environment that “safe-guards the priority of the person.”

4. “Imbued with the Catholic worldview across the curriculum,” Catholic education should “transform the way we see reality.”

5. “A place where committed Catholics teach.” Catholic teachers should themselves be “witnesses for Christ.”

Archbishop Miller has real world experience in Catholic education. As president of the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, he helped to make a good Catholic university into an excellent one – a university that deserves to be included on any short list of faith based Catholic colleges and universities.

Good Catholic schools grow from the “bottom up, not from the top down,” Miller concluded. Wherever you find a good Catholic school you will find leaders behind it who have a “genuine Catholic vision of education.”

At the beginning of the conference the present Chair of the USCCB Committee on Education, Bishop Bernard J. Harrington, congratulated the co-sponsors, saying it was the first meeting of its kind on Catholic education in the United States. Harrington mentioned other conferences that were being planned in the near future. We can hope that Archbishop Miller’s list of benchmarks will be the starting point of future discussions on Catholic education. Such clarity is as rare as it is bold.

The Acton Institute’s Catholic High School Honor Roll has released its annual list of the Top 50 Catholic High Schools in the United States. About half are repeat winners and half are new honorees. See the Honor Roll web site for more information.

As the new school year begins, Anthony Bradley reflects on the role of the parent in creating educational success. “Overall, children in loving, stable two-parent homes have an academic and social advantage over those who do not,” he writes.

Read the full text here.

Once again, my alma mater, Michigan State University, has been snubbed by the Princeton Review. While the list of the “Top Party Schools” does feature four Big 10 campuses, MSU, which hosted at least 3 major alcohol-induced riots in the past decade, fail to crack the top twenty.

HT: The Daily Eudemon