Investing in education

Sadly, with the announcement this week of the closing of St. Patrick School in Chicopee, our diocese will witness the loss of yet another beloved Catholic elementary school. But this shouldn’t necessarily be interpreted as the impending death of Catholic education in our region.
In fact, supporters of Catholic education in New England, where schools have struggled for years with declining enrollments and faltering finances, might have been pleasantly surprised by other news out of Dorchester and Mattapan earlier this week.

A newly reconfigured Catholic schools cluster in Boston’s poorest group of neighborhoods is scheduled to open in the fall. With a substantially higher enrollment, it will soon be known as the Pope John Paul II Catholic Academy.

Thanks to a multimillion dollar commitment by a group of Boston businesspeople, the archdiocese has developed a plan to invest $67 million in inner-city Catholic education. The business group has already raised $25 million and seems likely to raise the remainder needed in the near future.

Boston’s bold plan, which is certain to attract attention elsewhere, includes elements which have in the past caused difficulties for tradition-bound New England Catholics.

The archdiocese will end direct control of seven parish elementary schools, and will close three school buildings.

The remaining four buildings, and a soon-to-be-built new building on the campus of a recently merged parish, will together form a five-campus, unified Catholic school system for many of Boston’s neediest students.
Diocesan officials here, who have already facilitated discussions about Catholic schools modeled after the pastoral planning process for parishes, should see if the lessons of Dorchester and Mattapan could be applied to Catholic education locally.

For this model to be successful here, however, it will take the same level of commitment by Catholic business leaders in western Massachusetts. Like their counterparts in Boston, we encourage them to step up and help maintain a Catholic school system that very much benefits the communities they depend upon.

At the same time, that local investment is more likely to come if Catholics here are willing to leave parochial divisions behind them as they commit to citywide Catholic education.

Catholic educators also must welcome more input from concerned “outsiders” who can help them make the sometimes emotionally difficult administrative decisions that will enable Catholic education to survive – and thrive – in western Massachusetts.