Morning Read: North Country Catholic schools in decline
The Watertown Daily Times has a fascinating summary this morning of the travails of Roman Catholic schools in the Diocese of Ogdensburg.
According to the article, Catholic schools in North Country parishes have lost half their children in the last decade alone, a more rapid decline than seen in other parts of the US.
“I think it’s a faith issue,” said Monsignor Robert H. Aucoin, a diocesan priest who has served as a principal at high schools in Watertown and Plattsburgh. “Catholic schools are faith-based. If our faith is weak, our schools will be weak.”
Sister Ellen Rose Coughlin, the superintendent of Catholic schools, agreed.
“People of the current generation and the generation before them are not choosing Catholic schools as we did before, because public schools are now more adequate and they don’t see the need for Catholic education,” Sister Ellen Rose said.
There are currently 1,900 children in Roman Catholic schools within the Diocese, down from 3,900 a decade ago. Thirteen schools have closed. Read the full article here.
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I don’t care what the Bishop says. It’s about money.
When I went to Catholic grade school in Detroit back in the 50’s, it was $35 per year per family, without regard to the number of children going to school.
Everything is about money.
No doubt it is all about money. But who do you think was paying the cost of you going to Catholic Grade school in Detroit Pete? Even back then it was more than $35 per family? It was the people of the Parish supporting the school. Catholics were able and did not mind fully supporting the schools out of the Parish coffers, ergo your tuition was paid directly out of the collection plate.
I think Msg. Accoin’s point was simply that at its core this is an issue of faith along with demographics. Less Catholics going to mass contributing to the Parish means less money, less money means less support for the schools. Less students interested in getting a Catholic education means less tuition, less tuition means fewer schools.
Mervel,
You can trace the problem back to fewer and fewer low paid priests, brothers, nuns and sister doing the teaching and the hiring of higher paid secular teachers.
I was taught by nuns in grade school and Marist priests in high school. The high school I attended cost about $250 per year and there were four or five parishes that fronted some of the money to build and start the school along with some help from the diocese.
To go there, first you had to be a member of one of the parishes. Second you needed to pass an entrance exam.
The school closed a few years back because all the whites (Catholics) had moved from Detroit to the suburbs.
Yes the “free” labor of nuns and brothers certainly helped keep the costs down in many of these institutions, but as the faith dwindles there will be fewer of them to use in this way, so we are back to faith and then money.
I don’t know sometimes I wonder about Catholic education producing a large group of people who really don’t like the Catholic Church very much, very resentful about the whole experience.
I went to public schools all of the way through and came to the faith as an adult; so I don’t have some of the resentments that I see some lapsed Catholics have. We don’t send our children to Catholic schools and I don’t feel guilty about it.
I think the real reason as many people no is the abuse that went on within the schools, the people of USA have had enough