Charter Schools Seen as Strategy for Saving Urban Catholic Schools

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/10/AR2008041003780.html?hpid=sec-education

A new study by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation finds that charter schools are being used to help urban Catholic schools that are in crisis. The report, "Who Will Save America's Urban Catholic Schools?" finds that the decline of inner-city Catholic schools has been hastened by Catholics moving to the suburbs, the employment of more lay teachers and principals at higher salaries, and rising tuition that priced out the poor and minority families that the schools sought to educate. In some communities, Catholic schools are converting to charter schools. "There's lots of different answers to the problem of saving Catholic schools. [Charter schools are] one of them," said Mary Anne Stanton, executive director of Center City Public Charter Schools, which was selected by the D.C. archdiocese to submit applications for conversion schools to the D.C. Public Charter School Board. The report states that charter conversion "may be the best available option - best in the sense that it would continue to make decent educational options available to youngsters who need them."

Source: Washington Post (free registration required)
Date: 04/14/2008
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