Michael J. Petrilli writes, on National Review Online, about the tragedy of urban Catholic schools closing. As he suggests, it is not these urban schools that need closing.
The closures have little to do with the quality of education that these schools provide. Two decades of studies have shown them to be effective, especially for poor and minority children. Rather, broader demographic trends are to blame. Simply put, most Catholics have left the urban core for homes in the leafy suburbs, and urban parishes have dried up in their wake. No parishes, no parish subsidies, no parish schools — yet thousands of needy children remain downtown. On top of that, the schools’ pipeline of affordable teachers has run dry. Once upon a time, most Catholic-school instructors were members of religious orders, requiring little or no cash compensation; now there are more nuns over age 90 than under age 50 in the U.S., and only five percent of the schools’ teachers come from religious orders. Lay teachers must be paid a decent wage, pushing Catholic-school tuitions out of reach for many poor families.
Meanwhile, in some of the same poor neighborhoods where effective Catholic schools are getting the axe, failing public schools remain open, seemingly resistant to reform.
Wasn’t the “accountability movement” supposed to change that?
In a similar vein, I wrote, in this USA Today op-ed:
We might well sympathize with those for whom the closing of a parish is painful because of family memories or ethnic traditions, or those who must now find a new school. And maybe we regret the loss of a few older, attractive buildings. In the end, though, why shouldn't the reaction of outsiders simply be, "Oh well, that's life"?
Why should we care?
For starters, urban Catholic schools and their teachers do heroic work in providing education, hope, safety, opportunity and values to vulnerable and marginalized children of all religions, ethnicities and backgrounds. Similarly, Catholic hospitals have long cared for underserved and disadvantaged people in both urban and rural areas, and helped to fill glaring gaps in the availability of health care. It is too easy to take for granted these and similar contributions to the common good. We should remember that, as these institutions fold, the burdens on and challenges to public ones will increase.
We might also care about the closings for slightly more abstract but no less important reasons. In a nutshell: It is important to a free society that non-government institutions thrive. Such institutions enrich and diversify what we call "civil society." They are like bridges and buffers that mediate between the individual and the state. They are the necessary infrastructure for communities and relationships in which loyalties and values are formed and passed on and where persons develop and flourish.
Catholics and non-Catholics alike can appreciate the crucial role that these increasingly vulnerable "mediating associations" play in the lives of our cities. Harvard University Professor Robert Putnam and others have emphasized the importance of "social capital," both to the health of political communities and to the development of engaged citizens. In America's cities, it has long been true that neighborhood churches and schools have provided and nurtured this social capital by serving as places where connections and bonds of trust are formed and strengthened. As Joel Kotkin writes in his recent book, The City: A Global History, healthy cities are and must be "sacred, safe and busy." If he is right, Catholic parishes, schools and hospitals help make America's cities great.
