01 May 2008
Faith-based Schools Are a Critical National Asset, Says President
White House holds summit on inner-city children and faith-based schools
Washington -- Calling faith-based schools in America's cities "a critical national asset," President Bush convened a White House summit on inner-city children and faith-based schools April 24. He also called on Congress to enact programs to help those schools survive and outlined ways state and local governments can help.
Faith-based schools located in areas with troubled public school systems “help inner-city families find greater choices in educating their children,” Bush told the summit, which featured several panel discussions with prominent experts in education. “These schools provide a good, solid academic foundation for children. They also help children understand the importance of discipline and character,” he said.
However, “America’s inner-city faith-based schools are facing a crisis,” Bush said, citing statistics showing that more than 1,200 faith-based schools closed in U.S. inner cities between 2000 and 2008, affecting nearly 400,000 students.
Although Catholic schools represent the largest number of faith-based schools, there are schools affiliated with many other religious denominations as well. In the state of New York, for example, some 20 percent to 25 percent of the total state nonpublic school population is Jewish, according to Agudath Israel of America, an orthodox Jewish organization. There are also Muslim and Protestant schools.
Bush noted that faith-based schools have deep roots in what is today the United States. The first Catholic school opened in 1606, a Quaker school opened in Philadelphia in 1689, and a Jewish day school opened in New York more than 40 years before the American Revolution.
In U.S. inner cities, many of the children who attend Catholic schools are not Catholic. In Memphis, Tennessee, for example, 81 percent of the children enrolled in 10 Catholic schools in the city’s poorest neighborhoods are not Catholic.
Almost 50 percent of Catholic schools are located in urban, inner-city and rural areas serving children from low-income families. Students of color represent more than 25 percent of Catholic school enrollments, according to the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA). Research has shown that students at Catholic schools have higher graduation rates than comparable students at public schools.
On his recent trip to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI urged the U.S. Catholic community to do “everything possible” to ensure that Catholic schools remain open and “accessible to people of all social and economic strata.”
Bush, speaking at the summit, called the rate of closures of inner-city faith-based schools “alarming.” Total Catholic school student enrollment for the 2006-2007 academic year was 2,320,651, according to NCEA. Of this total, 1,682,412 children are enrolled in Catholic elementary and middle schools and 638,239 in secondary schools.
There are 7,498 Catholic schools in the United States, compared with roughly 13,000 in 1960. During the 2006-2007 academic year, 36 new Catholic schools opened, mainly in suburban areas, while 212 closed or consolidated. More than 1,300 Catholic schools have closed since 1990, according to a study released by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a nonprofit organization that is supporting school choice.
The declining number of nuns and priests available to teach at Catholic schools has driven up costs by forcing school leaders to hire lay teachers and principals at competitive salaries. This has resulted in higher tuition than many parents can afford, said Karl Zinsmeister, the president's domestic policy advisor. The mean cost of tuition in a Catholic school in 2006-2007 was $2,607 at the elementary level and $6,906 at the secondary school level, says NCEA. Through their federal, state and local taxes, families who enroll their children in faith-based schools are supporting local public schools, which their children can attend for free.
One way to help children in struggling inner-city schools “is to work hard to improve the public school system,” Bush said, “but also another solution is to recognize that there is a bright future for a lot of children found in faith-based schools.”
The president proposed spending $300 million in grants to enable 75,000 low-income children now enrolled in troubled public schools to go to a school of their parents’ choice. So far, the Democrat-majority Congress has not acted on his proposal, which Bush also presented in his State of the Union address in January.
Under President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, public schools must reach certain targets in student achievement and high school graduation rates. The new grants he is proposing would go to children currently attending schools that have not reached the targets.
The United States government provides relatively little funding for faith-based schools. The U.S. Supreme Court has found that there is no U.S. constitutional prohibition that prevents government support for parental choice of schooling, but it also has said that states can set their own standards for separation between church and state. Nearly two-thirds of states have amendments in their constitutions prohibiting public support of religious schools.
Some states such as New York provide limited aid to private and faith-based schools, mainly reimbursements for state-mandated services. Some cities, including Washington, Milwaukee (Wisconsin) and Cleveland (Ohio), have used vouchers enabling parents to use public money for private schooling, but the success of these programs remains a matter of dispute.
The Fordham Institute study found that Catholic schools get strong positive ratings for “instilling moral values” and “offering a disciplined learning environment.” In addition, the majority of adults (55 percent) voiced support for a proposal to subsidize faith-based programs such as support for young teachers who choose to work in inner-city Catholic schools and financial support for technology and transportation in these schools.
Although education has not been a major issue in this year’s presidential campaign, Republican hopeful John McCain promises he “will fight for the ability of all students to have access to all schools of demonstrated excellence, including their own homes,” according to his position paper. The two remaining contestants for the Democratic Party’s nomination, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have promised help for public schools but made no promises regarding faith-based schools.
The transcript of the president’s address to the summit is available on the White House Web site.
Also see Education.
