|
Civil Rights in Public Education www.CRIPEweb.org |
|
Research Note #10 Concerns of Roman Catholic Educators Excerpts from the book “Catholic Education — Ensuring a Future” By James T. Mulligan, a Canadian Holy Cross Father. Novalis, 2005 James T. Mulligan has worked in Roman Catholic secondary education and faith formation for Roman Catholic teachers for 35 years. Since 1990 he has worked on a number of education endeavours in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Newfoundland. What Catholic education? On page 119, Mulligan looks at internal factors affecting Roman Catholic education. With regard to Newfoundland, emphasis added: “Most parents could not see the difference between a Catholic school and an integrated (public) school. Catholic education was making no special contribution to the community, offering no compelling reason to guarantee the continued existence of Catholic education. Too many schools were Catholic in name only.” Page 123: “I remember reading the comment of a Newfoundland teacher who cited an ‘indistinguishable Catholic education’ as one of the reasons some Catholics were willing to vote to close Catholic schools. You couldn't tell the difference.” Page 129: “I first got involved in Catholic education in 1997 by running as a trustee because my children were beginning school. The situation in Newfoundland and Labrador hit home. The speed with which the Constitution can be amended to change the rights of some if a bare majority wants it is shocking. I am a lawyer, and I would say it is so true.” Page 130: “The demise of Catholic education in Newfoundland and Labrador, as we have seen, poses profound challenges for committed Catholic educators and parents and local churches in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario. They understand now that there are limits to the British North America Act protection of their publicly funded schools.” The unchurched Page 273: “Most of the 70 to 75 per cent of unchurched students in Catholic schools have been baptized Catholic and have received the sacraments of Eucharist, reconciliation and confirmation. Many are in Catholic schools because of their parents’ or their own instinctive sense of relationship and comfort.” Another referendum? Page 286: “We would be naive to think that there is no further threat to survival because our minority rights to Catholic education are enshrined in the Constitution. Newfoundland and Quebec both demonstrated that what was constitutionally done can become politically undone. It is sobering to keep in mind that while Catholic schools are legitimate constitutionally, in the eyes of the Supreme Court of Canada they violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; and in the eyes of many Canadians, and indeed in the eyes of the United Nations, Catholic school funding is discriminatory. So it is not unreasonable to think that a referendum could take place on the Catholic school question. If such a referendum takes place, what should we expect? It is a scary question. So the real challenge is to demonstrate to both the Catholic and non-Catholic public, the taxpayers, that Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario would become immeasurably impoverished without public Catholic education.” Start negotiations now “Bob Anderson, Director of Catholic Education for the Ontario Catholic School Trustees' Association, claims that if Catholics are going to hang on to a distinctively Catholic education system, they...have to do a lot of work convincing the broad public that Catholic education is not only worthwhile but necessary for the common good of Ontario. (Of course, what he says of Ontario is true also for Alberta and Saskatchewan.)” “Try to...look at Catholic education through the eyes of those in the public domain who are not Catholic school ratepayers.” “Does the public really see a difference?” If not: “We can start legal negotiations now. Which properties and resources will remain with the Catholic church, and which will go to the government for the new and expanded public school system?” Read the following for more concerns and a study on the outcomes of Roman Catholic schools. A posting on the web site of the Halton District Catholic School Board included a section entitled “Calling all partners in Catholic education ~ act now!….. Preserve The Legacy Of The Enduring Gift Of Catholic Education”. Excerpts follow. Emphasis is added. “Dr. Mark McGowan, Principal of St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, acknowledges in his paper – "The Vision. Purpose and Current State of Catholic Education", how the Catholic educational environment has changed in response to our rapidly changing social, economic and political world. Some of the signs of our times include funding completion, the creation of large school boards, equitable funding, the demise of the publicly-funded Catholic Education systems in both Newfoundland and Quebec - which we must safeguard against, ongoing political and legal challenges to the very existence of Catholic schools by other educational organizations, as well as the funding shortfall in education that is certainly another challenge that frequently causes friction among the Partners in Catholic Education and encourages opponents of our system to advocate for one unified system. “Our continued status as part of the publicly funded education system is not only dependent on legislation (provincial and federal), but it is also dependent on the political commitment of the prevailing government of the day, and the political will is in no small way influenced by prevailing public opinion. “Survey results of a Vector Poll for the Canadian Opinion Coalition, conducted in June, 2001, presented a very disturbing challenge to Catholic education from within. The results stated that 56% of Catholics who responded to the poll indicated that they believed a unified school system (Catholic and Public) would cost less to run and save money, while 52% of the Catholics polled said that a unified board would be more accountable and provide better education. “There is clearly an urgent need to better inform the supporters of Catholic education about its value, its distinctiveness and its traditional excellence. In today’s secular world, in which the landscape of education has been reshaped by the politics of the day, the Catholic school system is in danger and has reached a “defining moment”. All Catholic supporters must be convinced of the value and distinctiveness of Catholic education or it will disappear into the public system.” * * * “Sister Clare believes that if Catholic supporters do not believe in, and publicly promote the value of, Catholic education, then it will eventually be taken away.” LESS THAN 5 PER CENT There is a perception among many that progress toward the elimination of public funding for Roman Catholic separate schools is almost impossible because of politics and the Roman Catholic vote. The fear is that Roman Catholics will be told how to vote by their priests. However, a recent newspaper article stated that: “...while more than one billion people in the world are Roman Catholics, attendance at Sunday mass is less than 5 per cent in Europe and North America.” Another reason to treat the fear as groundless. FOR WHAT PURPOSE do public funds go to Catholic schools? PERCEPTIONS? OR FACTS? If we discount politics, and look for other reasons, we find that there are only perceptions — no facts. The perceptions seem to be that Roman Catholic schools have moral teachings where public schools do not. Another is that the students are better behaved than public school students and are not as prone to get into trouble. The facts are — oh, where are the facts? What! There are no facts? No studies? Why? There is no doubt that if either of the above perceptions were true, we would be hearing about them over and over again. But we don’t. Research, however, has turned up an American booklet with a study. The following is reprinted by permission from: “Catholic Schools: The Facts” by Edd Doerr, Americans for Religious Liberty (ARL), Box 6656, Silver Spring MD 20916 USA (c) 1993, 2000. “ARL is a non-profit public interest educational organization, founded in 1981, dedicated to preserving the American tradition of religious, intellectual, and personal freedom in a pluralistic democratic state.” The following paragraphs, in arial type are quoted from the aforementioned book. ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL OUTCOMES Since, unlike public schools, Catholic schools spend a considerable amount of effort and time throughout the school year on religious instruction, which includes a strong moral education component, it would be expected that differences between Catholic and public schools would be detectable with regard to the values, beliefs, and behaviors of products of the two systems. There is a vast literature about Catholic schools, their purposes and goals, instructional techniques and curricula, and the what and where for of religious education. There is also a vast literature of special pleading about the value of Catholic schools and arguments for its support from public funds. But, curiously, there is very little to be found on the subject of how the results of Catholic schooling differ from those of public schools in the area of values, beliefs, and behaviors. * * * FOUND — A 1987 STUDY Reporting to the 14,000 attendees at the annual convention of the National Catholic Educational Association in New Orleans, sociologist Peter L. Benson, president of the Search Institute, said that, "The Catholic high school does a good job of promoting important values in kids, particularly in religion, but it isn't as good at preventing adolescent behavior we want to prevent." In reading the results of this study, keep in mind that in the United States, religious schools must charge fees to cover the full cost of operation as there is no public funding whatsoever. Benson reported that the study of 16,000 high school seniors from public and nonpublic schools nationwide, including 1,000 from Catholic schools, showed that "significantly greater percentages of Catholic-school seniors said they used alcohol, cocaine, and marijuana than public-school seniors." Benson's analysis found that: 45% of Catholic school seniors said they had been drunk in the two weeks before the survey, compared to 39% of public school students; 21% of the Catholic school students said they had tried cocaine, compared to 17% of public students; 57% of Catholic school students said they had used cocaine at least once, compared to 54% of public students; 44% of Catholic school students had smoked marijuana in the six months before the survey, compared to 41% of public students; 28% of Catholic school seniors had used marijuana in the preceding 30 days, compared to 26% of public school seniors; 40% of Catholic school students surveyed said they had shoplifted during the past year, compared to 29% of public students. (Apart from the report published in Education Week, these data have not appeared elsewhere.) These findings are particularly significant because the Catholic school seniors attend schools which are academically more selective and elitist than public schools and which stress religious education generally on a daily basis, and come from families with higher average incomes than public school students, families which are somewhat more likely than public school families to have both parents present. CLEAR CONCLUSION Even on the basis of these limited data, it is difficult to avoid these conclusions: that Catholic schools are not superior to public schools with regard to influencing behavior in a socially positive direction; that formal religious instruction in full time day schools and the permeation of the curriculum with religious content do not produce graduates with better moral values than the religiously neutral public schools continually denigrated by many supporters of private education; and that any "superiority" which Catholic high schools may have over public schools is owed primarily to their selectivity. SO NOW YOU KNOW The next time you are presented with the belief that Roman Catholic schools are any better in a moral sense, ask for the proof. Chances are you will find that there isn’t any. But you can cite the above, the study done by sociologist Peter L. Benson, president of Search Institute. The bottom line is that the extra $0.5 to $1 billion that we pay each year to support the Roman Catholic separate school system is for nothing more than support of the Roman Catholic Church. There being no social benefit, it is for no other reason. The author of the book, Edd Doerr, obtained most of his elementary and secondary education in Roman Catholic schools in Indianapolis, but during a 3-year period, switched back and forth six times between public and Roman Catholic schools. Edd has a B.S. in education from Indiana U.
|