Greg Sisk, The Case for Catholic Schools (Part Two): Integrating Personal Faith in Life, Education, and Community

Some are quite critical of our Catholic schools, finding them to fall short of the mark (even if superior to the public schools). In a setting where the only available Catholic parish school is woefully inadequately, I understand why a parent would lean to alternatives. I must also say, however, that living in two major cities, and having carefully explored many, many Catholic parish schools when joining the Church and then when moving to a new city, I have yet to find one that was educationally inferior or that could justly be denigated as "nominally Catholic." To be sure, as one would expect, some surpassed others in academic quality, and some were more vibrant or more orthodox in Catholic faith. But not one of the Catholic schools that I visited and investigated was a discredit to the parish to which it belonged. Sadly, I appreciate that others may have had different experiences, and I do sympathize with those who face such difficult burdens in educational choice.

Alternative Catholic schools tend to be better than diocesan schools, which resemble their secular counterparts in their theory of education, curricula, and use of textbooks.

In the end, however, withdrawal is not an option for Catholics (we're not Protestants after all, who start a new church whenever a flaw is identified in the existing church). As we must resist the temptation to withdraw from parish life when we are disappointed with our local Catholic Church, I submit that the truly Catholic response is to become even more engaged so as to prayerfully and energetically work to correct any problems with Catholic education. When we work with other parents and parishioners to strengthen the Catholic school at the heart of our parish, we just may find that God is working dynamically and deeply in that school and that the rewards, temporal and spiritual, for our Catholic kids are great!

Good luck to parents who seek to reform the diocesan schools.

I think the problems affecting the life of the local Church and diocesan schools are rather understated in his post; can parents persuade their pastors and bishops to adopt a new model of education? If they can't, will they be able to start their own schools?