Wichita dispels myths about Catholic schools

"One of the reasons Catholic schools outperform public schools is that they don't have to deal with 'problem' kids. If a child is a troublemaker they just kick him out and force the public schools to deal with him."
Heard that before?
I have.
Many times.
So has Bob Weeks, out in Kansas. And so, when a Wichita, Kansas public school board member made a similar allegation, he decided to do some fact checking.
It turns out that the Wichita Catholic school system expels about 1 out of every 2,000 students each year, while the public school system expels kids at about 10 times that rate.
Read the full story here.
Other myths
The Wichita Catholic school system also serves to dispel some other myths about Catholic education.
For instance: "Catholic schools do well because they don't have to deal with minority students, who are also frequently poor students."
The facts: Among the almost 11,000 students in Wichita Catholic schools, over 1,300 are Spanish-speaking and over 2,300 are minority. Almost a quarter come from low income families. (Source here.)
Another myth: "Catholic schools do well because they don't have to deal with students with special educational needs."
Again, the facts: There are no entrance exams for Wichita Catholic schools. If a child needs an Individualized Education Program he gets it and the staff works with him to ensure that he reaches his potential.
According to Superintendent Bob Voboril,

We have a group of counselors and nurses that do everything they can to serve every kid with a disability. We do that without any federal funds. It’s not about how smart they are.
When people come to me and say, "We don’t need those low-earners," I tell them every time, "Okay, I’ll buy that, if you can show me in the Bible where it says that Jesus came to save only the top 50 percent." We have a care for every darn kid here.

The right attitude
The Wichita Catholic school system is so successful because it has adopted the right attitude towards Catholic education. According to Mr. Voboril,

This is how Catholic schools should be. They are built around faith. They are built around parish. They are built around community. And they are built around the Spirit. We don’t separate school from parish, parish from diocese, it’s all part of the same whole. And that whole is living the stewardship way of life.

When asked about moving on to other, larger dioceses Voboril responded,

I could go to other places that have more resources. But in the end, I am going to make a difference by staying in a diocese that is so committed to forming people the right way. Nobody is doing it as effectively as we are and nobody is as passionate as we are. In other places, they are just talking about holding on and surviving. Here, we are talking about new and innovative ways to spread Catholic schools even further across the diocese.

DOR is one of those places where they are just "holding on and surviving," despite all the happy talk to the contrary coming out of Buffalo Rd.
Bishop Matthew Clark, Fr. Joe Hart and MCCS Superintendent Anne Willkens Leach could learn an awful lot from Wichita.
Most likely they won't.
If history is any guide, our local triumvirate will just continue to ignore this success story.

DOR has "lost sight ... of who their stakeholders are"

On Monday the D&C ran an article on the declining enrollment woes at the Monroe County Catholic School System.

As of August 12 - with just 4 weeks left before schools reopens - the MCCS System had registered 3,371 students.  That is some 351 (or 9.4%) fewer children than last year, in spite of a new advertising campaign.

While MCCS Superintendent Anne Willkens Leach still claims that she expects the 2009-10 enrollment to match last year's, she has already taken steps that indicate she really doesn't believe her own press releases, cutting "about five positions in advance of this school year."

Also, in an attempt to help with what is sure to be a challenging budgetary situation, the diocese plans to institute "a new Sunday collection for Catholic schools."

The poor economy is almost certainly having an effect on enrollment, but other factors also seem to be playing a role.

One of these factors, in the opinion of parent Lynn Ringholz, is that "the Diocese of Rochester has completely lost sight ...of who their stakeholders are."

She was referring to the recent ousting of Mr. Joe Holleran as principal at St. Lawrence School in Greece. It seems that the MCCS System, as part of its restructuring last year that resulted in class sizes approaching 40 children, promised principals that they would receive classroom aides to help with those large classes. 

However, when the system's actual 2008-09 enrollment missed its 4,000 student target by some 7.0%, the diocese reneged on some of the promised aides.  Mr. Holleran then opted to use funds already raised by St. Lawrence students and parents to pay for the aides the diocese would no longer provide.  This apparently aroused the ire of diocesan officials and Mr. Holleran became history last June. (More details here.)

Holleran declined to speak about the specifics of his departure but did not refute Ringholz's account.

"I think the sense I have of the faculties and the principals is that they're very much wanting to trust the Catholic schools office and the bishop," said Holleran, who accepted a job teaching theology at an area school.

"These are things that we've been looking for, for many years: that visible support, that vocal support."

Note that Mr. Holleran never says that that principals and faculty members have ever felt that they could trust the Catholic schools office and the bishop. 

His omission speaks volumes.

Fidelity to the Church is attracting vocations

Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate has a new report out.  Entitled "Recent Vocations to the Religious Life,"  it was prepared for last week's National Religious Vocation Conference, which took place in New Orleans.

Not too surprisingly, CARA found that vocations "are attracted to religious congregations by the example of the members, particularly by their testimony of joy, a down-to-earth attitude, commitment and zeal."

Furthermore, "the groups that are most successful in attracting and retaining new members follow a more traditional style of religious life [where] members live together in community and participate in daily Eucharist, pray the Divine Office, and engage in devotional practices together."

Finally, according to CARA, these groups "wear a religious habit, work together in common apostolates, and are explicit about their fidelity to the Church and the teachings of the Magisterium."

That last paragraph describes DOR's RSMs and SSJs back in their pre-Vatican II days, a time when both orders were flourishing. 

Dropping the habit, moving out of the convent, pursuing individual careers and tolerating just about every form of dissent among the membership has thinned the ranks of both orders substantially and attracted little in the way of new blood.

Both orders now could serve as case studies in self-destruction.

The full report is here (click on the 5th bullet point).

Reverse Momentum

The first break in tonight's edition of EWTN's Life on the Rock featured this video from Spirit Juice Studios. 

 

 

"He waits for you."

"What I would do if I were Bishop"

Father James Farfaglia has a very thought-provoking post over at Illegitimi non carborundum outlining the changes he would make and the policies he would institute, were he to find himself named a bishop.

Father Farfaglia makes it very clear that he is quite happy as a parish priest and has no desire to be a bishop.  That said, his article shows that he has given some serious thought to the problems most likely facing his diocese - and certainly facing others - and has developed some very interesting responses.

Reducing the size (and, therefore, the cost) of the chancery, dedicating most of his time to his priests, personally leading an ongoing catechetically-based renewal of his priests, personally focusing on the recruitment and formation of seminarians, growing Catholic schools - these are all steps Father Farfaglia would take.

He would also make marriage preparation a priority, using JPII's Theology of the Body as his basis.  As to the instructors, "Any priest, deacon, religious or lay instructor that was confused about Humanae Vitae would not be tolerated."

There is much more, which may be found here.

Let us hope and pray that DOR's next shepherd is a man like Father Farfaglia.

Name those dioceses

Over the last several months I have been acquiring old editions of The Official Catholic Directory. So far I have about a dozen covering many of the years from 1977 to 2007.

These, along with online U.S. Census data, will serve as the source material for a "data mining" project that will allow me to compare the performance of the Diocese of Rochester with any other diocese in the country.

"Performance in what respect?" one might ask. Well, each edition of the OCD contains a wealth of information for each U.S. diocese. Included are such data as the numbers of ordinations, seminarians, parishes, Catholic elementary and secondary schools, students in those schools, baptisms, marriages, and deaths - and that only scratches the surface.

A typical summary entry looks like this ...

This one happens to be the 1977 statistical summary for DOR. Later summaries include additional data, such as the number of full receptions into the Church, the number of first communions and the number of confirmations.

An example - and a challenge

To give a feeling for what is possible I have used the OCD data from 3 dioceses to calculate the number of infant baptisms per 1,000 Catholics for each diocese over a number of years.

The result, in graphical format, looks like this ...

Two of these dioceses are considered to be fairly orthodox, while the third is considered fairly liberal.

Would anyone care to hazard a guess as to the identities of Dioceses A, B and C? If so, feel free to use the comment box.

In another day or two I'll post an update identifying each diocese.

Update: It's been a couple of days and so, as promised ...

Diocese A: Kansas City - St. Joseph

Diocese B: Rochester

Diocese C: Wichita

The greatest threat to the Church

Found while looking for something else ...

Maybe the greatest threat to the church is not heresy, not dissent, not secularism, not even moral relativism, but this sanitized, feel-good, boutique, therapeutic spirituality that makes no demands, calls for no sacrifice, asks for no conversion, entails no battle against sin but only soothes and affirms. -Archbishop Timothy Dolan (Source here.)

One need look no further than much of DOR to see just how squarely His Excellency has hit this particular nail.