Catholic Schools: A Eulogy

When Flannery O'Connor was asked why her short stories contained so much violence, she answered "For the almost blind, you draw large and startling figures, and for the hard of hearing, you shout." The reflection which follows is a deliberatively provocative "shout" to those of us who have been blessed with prosperity, many of us as a result of being catapulted ahead by the formation we received in Catholic schools: 

"If I am being honest, my social class defines me more than my faith. Though I was raised in Catholic schools and have a certain nostalgic affection for them, my wife and I now have the means to send our son to a more elite private school, and just as we successively “trade up” our homes and neighborhoods, so too does our family’s affiliation with these elite schools mark our improved social standing.

Passing on the faith to our son remains a goal, but it's often a logistical headache to get him to CCD classes, with athletic schedules, academic commitments, travel and the like. We tried to go to Church together when he was young, but now he’s a teenager, and Mass and CCD classes are boring to him, so we haven’t pressed the issue.

But I can't complain. I am proud of the man he’s becoming. His grades are good, he has a firm handshake, looks you right in the eye when he speaks to you, and seems to be developing the social skills to get ahead. He has a great summer job as an intern with his classmate’s father, a relationship that will help him in his future. It’s all about the connections! His private school requires service work, so I think he's getting some of the "Catholic thing" there—he tutored some kids in Math from the public school on the other side of town, which was an eye opening experience for him. “Besides,” I told him when he expressed some anxiety about it, “it will look good on your resume.”

It is hard to imagine someone being this honest, but for many of us who are upper middle class Catholics, this narrative too accurately reflects our underlying values and priorities about raising children. For many of us, Catholic schools are "dead."

They did not die from antipathy: most of us who were raised in Catholic schools have generally positive memories and feelings for them. Catholic schools didn’t die because the sisters left or because tuition has become too expensive; many of us send our children to schools which are pricier. They've died because we’ve changed, because Catholic schools prioritize things we no longer value: the transmission of faith, a common sacramental life, or a consistent intellectual tradition. These have become “niceties” that we say we want for our children, but only if they’re able have the more important things: academic opportunity, first tier athletic facilities, or social status. Catholic schools have facilities which are too dated, their campuses too shabby, their P.R. efforts too limping by comparison. Absent the rare, expensive Catholic high school that can deliver on all these prerequisites AND transmit the faith, we opt for what we most value.

We tell ourselves as parents that we can “handle” the “religious part.” But most of us as parents have no idea about what the Church says about the purpose of government or its appropriate role in regulating the economy. We may have strong opinions about capital punishment or the war in Afghanistan, but very few of us can articulate why the Church is opposed to both, or the intimate connection between both issues in the social teaching tradition. We like the idea that our kids should develop a Catholic world view, but know deep down that’s virtually impossible by going to Mass once/week or by attending Sunday morning religious ed classes taught by well-meaning but untrained volunteers. We hope our kids will meet a dynamic priest or youth minister in our parish who will ignite our kids’ enthusiasm for the faith, but secretly believe such a person is more likely found in a different Christian faith than our own. We try and convince ourselves we can have the same scope of influence on our kids’ attitudes and moral values when they are older as when they were children, even though we know it’s natural for teens to spurn their parents for a time and seek other adults to emulate.

"But wait!" we protest. "Who’s to say the local Catholic school can deliver on all these things? I heard they have theology teachers who teach heresy! I heard it has a drug problem! I went to a game once and their player took a cheap shot at one of our players!  I hear their school masses are dull! I know a person whose child doesn’t practice the faith after she paid for all those years of Catholic schooling! If they’re teaching values, the values aren’t sticking!"

Most of us wouldn’t buy a car without doing research, but we’re willing to decide on the place our kids' attitudes and values will be profoundly shaped for the entirety of their young lives on the basis of these “he said, she said” rumors. How many of us have really done the research? How many of us have gone to the source and met with the principal of the school to express these concerns before deciding? Are the rumors true? What has the school done? How many of us have visited the Catholic school while in session to truly understand the culture of the place? How many have discussed the school with other parents who have committed their children there?

We haven’t done these things because the answers we would find don’t really matter in the end. If we’re honest, the rumors only serve to justify a decision we’ve already made. Better to leave them as unverified rumors than confront the fact we’re making decisions based on a set of values we’d rather not acknowledge.

R.I.P. Catholic schools!

New Habits for Financing Catholic Schools

Salaries, Raising Revenue, Cutting Costs--
For Presidents, Principals and Boards of Catholic Schools

My title is intended as a play on words. The sisters are by and large no longer with us, so we must find new "habits" for financing our schools, recognizing we can no longer rely on the heroic sacrifice of these magnificent women. Here, then, are some thoughts on how we might do that:

I. Salaries

1) Do away with salary scales. At my previous school I had them; at my current school I do not. Not having them gives me much more flexibility to go after teachers I need to get and keep the ones I need to keep. Our local Board gives me a “salary” total as a line item in our budget, and I have to stay within that. I believe Catholic schools have a misplaced sense of fairness that all our teachers must be paid the same, independent of degree or value to the school. The world doesn’t work that way. My roommate in college was a chemical engineer and I was a theology major. I had no doubt that he would make more money than I would when we both graduated (he did). The average kid graduating with a Physics degree can make $60,000 starting off, and the gap between what he makes and what our salary scales dictate widens over time. We have to recognize these realities when we hire. Salary scales guarantee we are under-paying some and over-paying others. If we are fortunate enough to get a maestro English teacher, we can give that person healthy raises over their tenure with us to keep him or her. But when we compete for teachers, if we are constrained by a salary scale for hard to get positions, we’re entering the battle with a self-inflicted wound.

If your diocese or board insists on salary scales, ask to design salary "bands" rather than exact salary charts, so that you retain some level of discretion over salaries based on the importance of that person to the school. 

Also, avoid a common and costly mistake that is true of too many salary scales: keeping the range from highest to lowest too tight. Our entry salaries, typically for first time teachers who are in their mid-twenties, are too similar to our 10, 15, 20 year veterans. Much better to widen the scale, with our entry salaries being very low, but then increase their salaries more generously, with, I'd argue, at least a twenty-five thousand dollar difference between starting and top-end. This has three positive effects: First, it saves us money overall,  because when the base salaries are relatively "high," the floor is raised for all employees, whereas if the bases are lower but the back end is higher, the higher salaries only apply to a limited portion of long-time, top end employees. But second, a wider distribution of salary scales, in my opinion, directs our limited resources the right way, to our longer term employees, upon whom we rely greatly and whom we need to stay with us, and who incidentally, have greater expenses. There's a big difference in household budgets between a 25 year old single person and a 35 year old mother of two! Finally, wide salary scales give our employees the satisfaction of improving their "standing" and salary more quickly,  giving them reason to stay with us longer. 

2) Consider signing bonuses or relocation stipends for newly hired faculty. This allows us to be competitive for new teachers while keeping first year salaries on the low side (see above).  Maybe I can only pay an incoming teacher $45,000 when a competitor can pay $50,000. But if I give that person $3,000 cash when they sign their contract, I’ve got a chance. Typically, teachers between jobs need cash right then, especially if they’re young teachers about to launch their careers. And because it’s a one-time bonus, I am not obligating our school for the future with the higher base salary. I’ve had success with this  in getting the persons we needed.


3) Consider joint-housing agreements. Likelier than not, there is empty rectory or convent space in your area. It sits there, empty, all year, even though the parish or religious order must pay to maintain it. Packaging a job offer with a low cost housing rental agreement could make your school a financially viable place to work, especially for a young, single person. It's a "win-win-win" for all those involved: the school pays nothing but offers a genuine "benefit", the parish/order gets some income whereas before they got none, and the young faculty member is able to save more each month from what is likely, alas, too puny a salary!

II. Raising Revenue:

1)  To raise revenue, raise prices. That may seem idiotically tautological, but it merits emphasis because we in Catholic schools often discount things that our families go right out and pay a higher price for elsewhere. To begin with, our tuition is typically too low. How can we compete with schools that are charging twice or three times what we are charging? We no longer benefit from being the lowest tuitions in town—people associate cost with quality. Would we feel BETTER about finding out our doctor charged half what the other doctors around town did? If we position ourselves in the market as the "K-Mart" of educational options, we're wasting whatever money we're spending on marketing to improve our public image. I think we need to adopt more of a college model, asking parents to pay for the true costs of educating their child, but also ramp up funding in financial aid. Over 80% of those in college now receive some form of financial aid.

Look at your second and third child discount rates. Many of us give half-tuition and two-thirds tuition off. Too much! If a large Catholic family struggles to pay tuitions, better to encourage them to apply for financial aid than to give an automatic tuition discount to the families who can afford to pay more.

Also, look at fee structures. Many Catholic schools treat their registration fees as down payments for next year’s tuition or deposits that will be refunded upon graduation. I would advocate that you lower the registration or deposit, but make it an annual fee that is added revenue. Most of our private school competitors do it this way.

Also consider raising prices for concession drinks, textbooks, gates to athletic games, cafeteria costs, the cost of school decals and spirit-wear. Our families don’t have to buy these things from us and if they do, they should have no expectation to pay less than market rates.

2) Institute a healthy financial aid policy—I anticipate most understand this already: If we have available seats, giving out more financial aid is not an expense but a revenue in the same way that discounting seats for airlines raises revenue. Better to get half fares for empty seats than no fare at all. If we have an enrollment problem, we have a real opportunity to make Catholic education more affordable to our families who believe they can’t afford us—make a negative into a positive!

The noble instinct in our schools is to keep costs down for the benefit of our poorest families. However, this in effect means we're subsidizing families who can afford to pay more and losing the revenue they'd willingly provide. It's better, I believe, to support our most vulnerable families through exceptional programs such as generous financial aid, rather than treat them as the base line for tuition setting. 

3) Encourage entrepreneurialism within your staff at school. Here’s a way to do it. Almost all schools zero out budgets for a new fiscal year. This virtually guarantees that those who are in charge of spending a line item in your budget will want to spend as much as you will allow them to, for fear of “losing” it to next year. It also means that unless you ride herd over them, they don’t care as much about generating revenue within their arena, either. Here’s what I’ve done with athletics, for example. I agree with our athletic director that he should raise X amount of revenue and have Y amount of expense for his budget that year. At the end of the year, if X minus Y is a positive number, I will place that amount in a designated fund—a savings account that he controls-- that doesn’t zero out. He loves that. But I also tell him that if X minus Y is a negative amount on any given year, I will withdraw money from that same account. The effect is this: Our A.D. is always looking for ways to add revenue and lower costs. Like many schools, doctors in our school donate their services on a particular Saturday morning to give free physicals to our athletes. Our A.D. decided to ask for a $20 donation for each physical, purely voluntary. Parents felt so good about how much that they were saving in money and time that they gladly gave up $20, and the athletic department made $6,000 in one morning for doing what they were already doing.

4) Never cancel debts from families for monies owed. Up to you as to whether you allow students to get report cards and even graduate, but always ask that family to pay the monies back when they can. Once a year, we send a letter to all those families with balances due on tuition who are no longer with us. And no, our return rate is not very high. But occasionally, just occasionally, a family responds and begins a payment plan. I don’t think that’s just good for the school—that’s good for our families, too, to provide them with an opportunity to make good on a debt they’ve freely undertaken.

5) Consider giving families the option of making an "annual fund" gift as an add-on to their monthly tuition payments. Typically, your monthly payers are not your biggest donors, so by providing this option, you're not undercutting your ability to ask for the larger gifts from others. You are, however, likely to get a larger annual amount from monthly payers if they can give $20, $50 or $100/month than if they make a single gift. And it should save significant staff and volunteer time soliciting through letters and phone-athons.

6) Advocate at the diocesan level that Catholic education is the responsibility of the whole Church, and not just those parishes with Catholic schools or those parishes with kids in our schools. I know that many dioceses link their subsidy amounts to per capita numbers of kids in a school. A parish without a school might be assessed 1,000 per child enrolled in another Catholic school, as an example. I am opposed to that method because it lets other parishes without a strong school population off the hook, and unwittingly discourages our pastors and finance boards from promoting our schools. Catholic education is an integral mission of the whole Church, a way of passing on our faith to our children. I believe dioceses ought to implement flax or progressive taxes on parishes across the board, independent of how many children attend schools in that parish, for the sake of supporting this broader mission.

III. Cutting Costs:

1) Consider alternative scheduling: We don’t often think of student scheduling as a way to cut costs, but there’s a room for saving money in how we do it. In my old high school, for example, we taught a traditional seven period day, and full time teachers taught in five of those periods (or 71% of the teaching day). We moved to a trimester schedule of five classes/day, of which teachers taught four periods (80% of the day). So each teacher, over the course of the year, went from teaching 5 credits (5 half credits in the first semester +5 in the second) to 6 credits (4 half credits in the fall +4 in the winter +4 in the spring). For every 20 full time faculty, that’s the equivalent of saving 3.5 teachers! But it was better than that: Since teachers only taught 4 periods each day, they averaged teaching  80-100 kids/day vs. 100-120 kids/day with five classes. Our kids went from juggling seven periods at a time to only five. We could insert remedial classes in the winter block if kids did poorly in English or Math in the Fall block. We could make some courses, like A.P. Calculus, a three trimester requirement.  Everyone was happier, and it was cheaper for the school—a rare combination.

2) Consider hiring part-time teachers. Two part time teachers are cheaper than a full time teacher because we don’t have to pay benefits. But I also believe if you find the right part-timers, they have more time for preparation for their one or two classes than someone teaching five classes and monitoring after school clubs or athletic teams. We are likely blessed to have among us very sharp, professional women who previously suspended full time work to raise their children, but may now be ready to work with us in a part time capacity. What is attractive about teaching with us is their work schedules mesh with their kid’s schedules: same days off, same hours and summer vacations.  Everybody wins.

3) Don’t rent or sell books, but instead, use an on-line vendor like Follet or MBS. Renting or selling books ourselves costs us in several ways: We must pay our bookstore manager, we must pay for significant trucking and mailing costs, we must find a place to store the books, we must secure books back and forth for students when they change schedules and most importantly, we must eat the costs of any unused inventory. We’ve started asking parents to purchase books using an on-line vendor, and all those costs and aggravations went away. With amazon.com now a way of life, parents are used to purchasing on line anyway.

4) Get out of the cafeteria business. It’s almost impossible for schools to make any money in the cafeteria, and more often than not, we lose money. And that doesn’t count the H.R. problems! There are two other possibilities: either contract with a professional cafeteria company, or if you’re too small, hire a part time mother to “run” a delivery service whereby the school imports food from local food vendors, pre-ordering each morning in homerooms. We do the former in my current school and did the latter in my old school. In both cases, we make (made) a little money. But I’d have been happy in my old school just to break even.

5) Re-think current hours for staff members of school. I know a school that lost 40 students but still wanted to retain its “specialty teachers” (art, music, etc.), yet there wasn’t enough money. At the same time, the school had a poorly regarded after school care program—not enough curriculum and too much day care. They decided to make the specialty teachers part of the after-school program and offered them a contract from 10-5:30. It worked for both teachers and school.

6) Re-think administrative structures. A principal and his or her secretary are no longer enough to run a school. The needs of students and their families are too great for one person, and the school can no longer rely on a cadre of mothers to serve as quasi-administrators for support and free labor. Rather than hire additional staff or administrators, consider creating "unit teams" of teachers.  An elementary school I know divided its K-8 school into three units: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, with a "lead teacher" of every unit in charge of the unit. The lead teachers' role is to coordinate and monitor curriculum within their unit, mentor new teachers, and be the "second line" of communication (after the child's teacher) for parents who need help. Each lead is given a significant stipend to recognize their administrative role and an additional free period, but the three stipends amount to much less than additional staffing. Plus, it's a way of giving our best teachers more money and responsibility.

IV. Concluding thoughts:

We in Catholic schools get uncomfortable talking so directly about money, preferring to focus on our mission. I think that is admirable! However, on average, our faculties are getting paid about 70% of what their public school counter-parts are getting paid. There’s an issue of justice there, and if we want to do better, we have to be very wise stewards of our school’s finances. We are not for profit institutions and no one is lining his or her pockets. Whatever margins exist go back into our school programs. "Without margin,” the saying goes, “there is no mission.”

May God give us the grace and wisdom to lead our schools well.

Ten Ways to Discuss "Why Catholic Schools?"

Simon Sinek, whose “Start with Why” youtube video has at this count over nineteen million views, says that the most successful companies talk powerfully about their “why” more so than their “how.” As an example, he says Apple is very successful, not by touting their excellent operating systems, but by trumpeting their commitment to individuality—that their products allow people to be fully themselves, unique, unconstrained by conventional limits to their productivity. That vision speaks powerfully to consumers, and it's pretty clear, given Apple's success, that it's worked! 

I am convinced that starting with the “why” is also the key to marketing and discussing our Catholic schools with others. Too often, however, we’re limited by our language in proclaiming this “why” to others, deadened by mission statements that discuss the “whole child” or that list a commitment to the minds, hearts, souls, bodies, etc. of our students. Yes, Catholic schools ARE committed to the whole child, but it’s such a cliché’ now that saying as much is uninspiring. So I’ve tried to find other ways of discussing our mission with others, pulling from a variety of sources, which may become reference points for us as school leaders as we talk about our school with others.  Here are some of my favorites, and in some cases, my brief reflections that follow:

1) “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” (C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity)

(We are architects and co-builders, working with God’s grace to build palaces--cathedrals, even!- in the life of our students, places where God can reside, transforming them!)

 2) “The glory of God is the human person, fully alive.” (St. Irenaeus)

(We want students to develop all facets of their personality, to become "Renaissance" young men and women, so they can become the best version of themselves, and in so doing, glorify God by fully embracing all that he has created them to be)

3) (Young people), it is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal. (JPII, World Youth Day, Rome, 2000) , or

“Do not be afraid! Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch!  (JPII)

4) Pope Benedict said something similar to youth recently: 

The world promises you comfort. But you were not made for comfort, you were made for greatness! 

5) Pope Francis, talking to young people about marriage, challenges them to become cultural “revolutionaries,” as follows:

"In a culture of relativism and the ephemeral, many preach the importance of enjoying the moment. I ask you, instead, to be revolutionaries, I ask you to swim against the tide; yes, I am asking you to rebel against this culture that sees everything as temporary and that ultimately believes you are incapable of responsibility, that believes you are incapable of true love."

(Our last three popes understand that young people live in a world of dreary accommodation, but instead, yearn deep down to live for something more than themselves. They want, ultimately,  to be challenged by the evangelical call of the gospel, and in our Catholic schools, young people hear this call, are inspired by it, and are supported to live it out! )

5) “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

(Catholic schools change lives. Our schools transform the minds and hearts of our students, so that they may seek what is holy—God himself.)

6) “There is an “optimism for excellence” here, borne out of our faith in what God’s grace is capable of achieving in the lives of our students if they’re immersed in a culture of high expectations, if they're supported by teachers and parents who care about them and pick them up when they stumble, if  they belong to a team, activity or club that they are passionate about with peers who share that passion, and if  they are invited to grow in their faith through prayer, worship and service to others. In such a culture, students truly flourish, becoming young men and women who are confident, happy and future oriented.“ (My presentation to new parents at orientation)

7) Peace Corps gets it. The armed services get it. Look at their recent recruiting slogans: "The toughest job you'll ever love." (Peace Corps), "Army Strong," "Be all that you can be!" (Army), "Not just a job, but an adventure, and "A global force for good" (Navy), "We're looking for a few good men," or "The few, the proud, the Marines." (Marines), "Aim high!" (Air Force). What do all of these have in common? They don't promise young people an easy life. In fact, they promise the opposite-- if they join up, they're going to be really tested. But through that challenge, by committing themselves to a cause that is larger than themselves, they will in fact "find themselves" and that their lives will be exciting!  This, too, is the counter-cultural call of the gospel: "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his soul?" (Mark 8:36). Serving others is a "great way of life!" (U.S. Air Force). 

This, too, must be the inspirational and aspirational message of our schools.   

8) What is the mission of St. Rose of Lima Catholic school?  First grader #1 “To go to college.” First grader #2 “To go to heaven!”  (St. Rose of Lima Elementary video, Denver, CO)

9) Here’s a prayer I’ve found very helpful in sharing with teachers that helps remind them of their mission as Catholic educators:

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master
builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

(Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw, often attributed, incorrectly, to Archbishop Oscar Romero)

10) We hold these truths to be self-evident—that all men are created equal, that they endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that governments are instituted among men to protect these rights and derive these powers from the consent of the governed (U.S. Declaration of Independence)

All successful organizations begin with founding principles—with unshakeable, unalterable truths that give it vision and life.

In simplest terms—here are our founding principles of JPII:

• We believe students are children of God, and this fills us with optimism and hope about what they are capable of achieving and the kind of people they are capable of becoming.
• We believe that young people flourish when they are encouraged to explore the full breadth of possibilities for their lives: intellectually, spiritually, artistically, and athletically. In this belief, we take inspiration from St. John Paul II, who was a scholar, poet, linguist, outdoorsman, playwright, actor and writer. -We hope that this "renaissance vision" of the human person will inspire students to seek full lives, marked by curiosity, a love of learning, and a willingness to try new things.
• We believe that the goal of education is not inward but outward, aimed at building a more just world, redeemed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. The imperative of our faith is to love and to serve others--faith leads us beyond ourselves!  Though our test scores are excellent, the measure of our school’s success isn’t a test score or  an A.P. result, but whether our students leave us predisposed to make a positive difference in their families, churches and communities. 

The Declaration of Independence concludes with these stirring words: "And for the support of this Declaration, with firm reliance on Divine Providence for protection, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. "  With firm reliance on Divine Providence, may we, too, accept the sacred honor to raise our children to grow into the young men and women that God has designed.   (a talk I gave at Back to School Night).

---

Concluding thoughts:

Let us be bold! Our schools must embrace the evangelical challenge of the gospel and talk about this challenge openly with our students and prospective families. Our culture underestimates kids, inflates their grades, gives them trophies for everything. Deep down, sometimes beneath the veneer of apathy, they want more. They want to become "new creations," and to be "transformed, by the renewal of (their) minds."  They want to make a difference in other people's lives--like all of us, they want to live full lives that matter! If we speak openly and optimistically of this gospel challenge with them, if we build a culture of high expectations, prayer and support to live this challenge out, our schools can free young people of the gravitational forces that inhibit them from soaring to become the magnificent persons God created them to be! 

If we learn to talk this way about our schools, the "why" becomes a powerful force in drawing others to us. Language matters! Let's use it well!

The Catholic School Difference

Though Catholic schools are committed to academic excellence (and all the national statistics show we’re delivering in this area), our primary goal is to pass on the Catholic faith to our children. How well do we do that?

CARA (“Center of Applied Research in the Apostolate), a research arm of Georgetown University, reports the following (2012):

Of the “millennials” (those who reached adulthood around the year 2000 or beyond) who attended Catholic elementary schools, 34% attend weekly Mass.

Of the millennials who attended Catholic secondary schools, 39% attend weekly Mass.

I think those of us in Catholic education would have hoped those numbers were higher, and in fact, I think they suggest we should continue to look for ways to strengthen those bonds. But to contextualize them a bit, here’s the kicker:

Of the millennials who have never attended a Catholic elementary school or  high school, only 5% attend weekly Mass.

In other words, it’s almost 7 times more likely (34 to 5) millennials will attend weekly mass if they went to our elementary schools, and almost 8 times more likely (39 to 5) if they went to our high schools.

That’s a stunning difference. To be sure, one cannot say with certainty that our schools CAUSED the entirety of that difference, as the numbers may partly reflect the pre-existing faith commitments of the families who chose to send their kids to our schools. But it does give ample credence to the belief that the best chance of passing on the faith to young people is to enroll them in our schools and that our schools augment what the parents began.   Speaking as a person who has worked most of his life in Catholic high schools, I can personally attest to the fact that when young people see their adult teachers and coaches take their Catholic faith seriously and talk about it explicitly with them, it reassures them that practicing one’s faith is not “just for kids.” We emulate those whom we admire.

I recommend reading CARA’s fascinating work in this area in more detail. You can find it here: http://nineteensixty-four.blogspot.com/2014/06/do-catholic-schools-matter.html

America's Most Wanted

What makes for a great teacher, and how does one hire for it?

Of all the important tasks of a school principal, hiring great teachers is THE most important, and I say that without equivocation. Teachers are the "boots on the ground" who will have the most impact on student's lives, they are the ones who will be remembered, for better or worse, by their students, they will be the metric by which our school will be judged by parents and the broader community.

All that seems rather obvious. But how does go about selecting such teachers? Here are the traits I care most about and those I believe are less important. 

Critical Traits

1) Intellectual agility, depth, smarts-- The "techniques" of teaching can be learned, but intellectual acuity, depth of understanding in a candidate's subject area and the curiosity to play with ideas must be givens prior to a successful career in teaching. Smart kids, especially, are merciless on teachers who cannot "hang" with them, and it's unlikely that a teacher who is not mentally gifted and self-confident will be open to contemporary pedagogy which de-emphasizes lecture and instead emphasizes Socratic dialog, "modeling" in the sciences or constructivist design.

When reviewing candidates, it matters to me what college they attended, which gives me a window into ability, but also how they did while college students. I want to review their transcripts, partly to verify they have numerous classes in their subject area, partly to see how many times they "dropped" classes (for me, a real negative), partly to get a sense of their work ethic. But I also want to get them talking about ideas in our interview,  to seek how they shape their thoughts,  to see what "sparks" them. I want to see a kind of "twinkle" in the eyes when candidates talk about something important to them. That spark will ignite sparks in our kids.

2) A deep, genuine faith life-- This, too, cannot be "faked" or manufactured. Though I prefer to hire Catholic faculty members (because I believe the 'critical mass' of Catholic school faculty must be Catholic in order to sustain a Catholic culture), I am open to outstanding candidates from other faiths; my experience is that if they are deeply committed to the gospel, they contribute powerfully to the religious mission of our school. I ask about the Church they attend, the name of their pastor, their particular involvement in the life of their Church or if they're right out of college, if they were active in Newman centers or if they participated in service projects while in college. Even with young candidates, if they were  "arrested for being Christian, (there should be) enough evidence to convict them." I also ask a more open ended question to tackle a myriad of other issues: "Is there anything in your personal life that would raise concerns if you were a teacher in a Catholic school?" 

3) A "with-it-ness"-- Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said famously about pornography, "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it. " I cannot define "with-it-ness" for a teacher too precisely, but I know it when I see it, and I (and every student he or she teaches) know it when a teacher doesn't have it.  Let's be blunt: A good teacher must simultaneously manage 20+ individual kids in the classroom, create interesting lessons, hold kids attention through-out the lesson, keep attendance, grade papers, track which students are missing which assignments, respond promptly to parent concerns, make deadlines set by the principals, be "aware" of what's happening behind his or her back when writing on the boards, and be cognizant of students needing special attention, just to name a few. Brilliant minds are not enough, which is why it is sometimes true that middle school teachers make better high school teachers than those with Ph.D's from the university. Having the wherewithal to manage multiple things is not a learned behavior--either one has that presence or one doesn't. 

So how can that be determined in an interview? I don't think it really can, which is why we insist that every finalist for a teaching position comes and teaches an actual lesson to our students, witnessed by our department chair and our academic dean or me. How cognizant is that teacher of what's happening in the back of the room? How well does that teacher engage unengaged students? How responsive are they? The answers are obvious if you can watch a teacher as he or she teachers. And you'll also be able to confirm some of your initial insights from the interview about mental agility, confidence, and poise.

4) Love for students, passion and empathy--Danny Meyers, a New York restaurant owner of some renown, says in his book "Setting the Table," that he looks for "Fifty-one Percenters" when he hires people to work for him. Forty-nine percent of a successful employee, he says, is competence and skill. But fifty-one percent is one's ability to work with others, one's empathy and attitude. The same is true of teachers. If a teacher is not empathetic and other-oriented, truly interested in the welfare of his or her students, then he or she will be no more than a technician and never truly a "teacher." Walk around a typical high school and observe carefully: who are the teachers talking to kids as they walk down the hallways? Who is kibitzing with students after class? Who's laughing with the kids as they laugh? These are the teachers who will make an indelible mark on the life of his or her students. 

There's no easy way to measure this in an interview, but there are indications. How well do the candidates listen? How genuinely interested are they? How do they talk about others in their story-telling? Do they steer conversations back to themselves?  I like to ask this question: "Can you talk about a person whose life you have impacted?" I think persons who have the instinct and desire to be a teacher should be able to answer that question pretty convincingly. And if they have a true love for kids, a principal will never really have to worry about their work ethic: the limited time to make a positive impact on a kid's life is too short to waste. 

Not particularly critical

There are other traits I am less keen about.  I don't care if the candidates are "certified" or not--in my experience, certification is no guarantee of quality, and getting certified often prevents a candidate from taking classes which delve deeper into his or her subject area. Give me candidates who've taken 300/400 level classes in the humanities, math and the sciences rather than candidates whose transcripts are loaded with 100/200 level education courses!  Because Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and other accrediting agencies for Catholic schools no longer require teacher "certification," I've never understood why many Catholic school systems insist on it; in my mind, it unnecessarily shrinks the pool of excellent candidates, when in fact I believe I am capable of making a determination of "qualified" or "unqualified" without a college of Education's stamp of approval. We have enough competitive disadvantages to overcome in the market place (such as salaries!) without self imposed wounds! 

If I am hiring a teacher for a core academic class, I also don't care if he or she can double as a "head coach"  in a varsity sport. In fact, the expectations on high school coaches have become so demanding, and high school athletics so time consuming,  that I generally prefer core teachers are NOT head coaches. I want the teacher's energy spent on designing good classes and getting graded work back to students in a timely manner, and too often, good coaching trumps good teaching.  On the other hand, assistant coaching is usually a nice complement to teaching, in that assistants are less likely to obsess over game planning, less accountable to the athletic community and less likely to bear the emotional burdens of the head coach, but can still build healthy, positive relationships with kids.  If I can find candidates who are satisfied being assistant coaches, it also tells me where their priorities are. 

Application procedures matter, too.

Smart, creative teachers have options for employment, and we need to remember we're competing for them just as much as they are trying to prove their value to us. So how we get on their radar matters. Here's two mistakes we often make:

First, we create dreadfully dull job announcements--heavy on the procedures, very scant on the exciting opportunity that this opening provides the candidate. I believe all of us should develop a 2-3 paragraph statement about our schools which is upbeat, positive and optimistic, linked to our best school videos and tied to our web pages--and this statement should become the introduction for every job we announce.  This is a life decision for the candidate, and we should trumpet what a good life it could be for them!

The second mistake we often make is we bury candidates with paperwork requirements on the front end of the application process. If we want to undercut our chance of getting smart, creative people who are being pursued by other schools, all we have to do is require them to fill out criminal background permission forms, verification of employment, obtain written letters of references, official college transcripts and the like as the first step in the process! For sure, we're going to eventually need these things, but as a second step in the courtship, after they've met us, taken a tour of the school, and are assured that from our point of view, they're serious candidates. No sense asking them to do all that stuff if they're not--and frankly, it's easier on us not to have to track all of that if we're really not interested in them. 

Instead, at the front end, I recommend requiring only a resume and a cover letter, which is common for job searches in other industries.   That's enough information for us to winnow down who we might want to interview. If we invite someone for an interview or practice teaching unit, we would then ask them to bring in an unofficial or official transcript, and while they're in the school, ask them to fill out the other necessary paperwork. I'd also suggest, as part of their interview, that someone gives them a tour of the school--whether that be the interviewer or someone from admissions, show them where their room might be, and answer questions they might have. 

If we like the candidate, some other school likely does, too! It's really important to understand we're selling them as much as they're selling us! And if we REALLY like the candidate, and worry we may not be able to match salary offers with a competitor down the street, consider offering a signing bonus. Especially for young people getting their first job, they often have very little money between graduating and beginning work in the fall, and a one time cash outlay of 2 or 3 thousand dollars can often make all the difference. Furthermore, signing bonuses don't obligate our school for the future as offering a higher salary would. 

What I Believe: Twenty-Five Years (and counting)

As I complete the “silver anniversary” of my years as principal, president or headmaster of a Catholic high school this May, I’ve had occasion to reflect on some of my basic beliefs about running Catholic high schools. Here they are, in brief:

Schools should be governed by relationships, not rules.

There’s no question that schools need order, and there’s no order without rules that govern how things are done. But ultimately, “rules” should come second and relationships first in the running of a school. Last Friday, the senior’s last day of classes before exams, there was a rumor that seniors intended to “walk out” of class at 1:30 p.m. and whoop it up, disrupting classes up and down the hallways. Whereas in itself this would be harmless, it’s been a particularly stressful second semester for us, with three days missed due to snow days and teachers scrambling to “catch up,” two teachers on maternity leave, and two teachers who broke contract and left early, and I knew that such a protest would be very poorly received by our faculty.  So I asked to meet with the seniors that morning in an impromptu session, and with 145 of them there, I looked at them, asked them not to do the walk out and told them why.  I didn’t threaten them, I didn’t warn them of the consequence, I didn’t quote rules.  I simply asked them, as a favor, telling them that their teachers were really stressed out right now. “Can I trust you?” I asked. “Yes," they said. And that was that—the walk out never occurred.

It’s a dreadful mistake, in our interactions with students and their parents, to “lead” with authority. Yes, the rules are there for everyone to read, and if people disrespect the authority of the faculty or principal, they are there to support that authority. But our first interactions should always be human ones, founded on relationships that should develop in our daily life together. When a student is doing poorly in a classroom, the teacher shouldn’t threaten failure or bully, but meet the kid privately and express concern, and ask how he or she can help.  When an emotional parent calls us and is critical, we should attempt to break through the hostility and humanize the conversation, recognizing both the school and the parents want what is best for the child, even if we have different visions of what that means. We should be willing to forgive, where forgiveness is needed, and apologize, where apologies are called for.

Teenagers understand that schools have rules, and they also understand, sometimes grudgingly, that teachers must enforce them. But they want to be respected as people first, and not handled as objects placed within a template.

School rules should be written to give leadership flexibility in handling individual circumstances.

When JPII was first established, it was a school of last resort for many students, and according to our Dean of Students, some of those kids were really troubled young men and women. In its first year, the school expelled over thirty students. For that reason, the school’s disciplinary policies were written in such a manner that allowed the school to quickly remove kids. For example: “Students who are in possession of, use, or exhibit the effects of use of alcohol at school or any school sponsored activity will be expelled (italics, mine).”

When I came to JPII as headmaster in its seventh year of existence as a school, I decided to simply “run” the school I inherited in my first year. Policy handbooks had already been published and it made sense that I take a year to understand things before I started changing them. During spring break that year, the boys baseball team participated in a week long “away” tourney, and in the hotel room one night, three junior boys smuggled in a can of beer and drank it it before being found out by their coach. I did what the policy forced me to do—I expelled each of them (though I also invited each one to re-enroll two months later to begin their senior year).  As I started my second year, however, I changed the policy from “will be expelled” to “will be liable for expulsion” so as to give me discretion in handling individual circumstances.

“Should the punishment fit the crime or the person?” I am guessing that most people would say, “the crime” out of a sense of justice and fairness. But just as parents know, instinctively, that treating each of their kids exactly the same doesn’t work , so too should Catholic schools in their handling of students. Our primary purpose is to minister to kids, helping them become the kind of person God wants them to be, and often, like parenting, this takes creativity and wisdom. What works for that person?  For that reason, a school should not be too prescriptive in outlining its disciplinary consequences for each infraction of a school rule. After discussing possible disciplinary penalties (detentions, Saturday school, suspension and expulsions) our handbook says simply “The school will impose disciplinary consequences for the infraction of school rules, dependent on severity and context.”  I have written more about this here: http://ideasincatholiceducation.blogspot.com/2013/09/discipline-mercy-and-being-creative.html

Faculty are professionals, and should be treated as such.

I’ve never cared for the term “supervision” because it literally means I have a “higher” vision than the faculty. Perhaps I have a broader vision, because of my responsibility for all the disparate parts that create the school community, but I certainly don’t have a “higher” vision when it comes to Physics, or Calculus, or A.P. English! Rather, I’ve hired professional Physics, Calculus and A.P. English teachers.

I think that distinction is an important one. Yes, there are traits that all professionals exhibit: timeliness of grading, punctuality for meetings and classes, reliability in meeting one’s duties in the parking lot or lunch lines, timely communication with families and students about progress, professional dress and demeanor, appropriate care and concern for students. These expectations should be articulated by the principal, and when there are patterns of poor performance, he should hold teachers accountable.

Regarding matters that touch closer to curriculum, it’s appropriate for schools to require faculty to produce syllabi that reflect cognizance of the national curricular discussions and thoughtfulness of design, that details how students will be held accountable in grading, that gives approximate time frames as to the sequencing.  But the choice of curriculum and its sequencing, the grade that a teacher assigns an essay, the ultimate grade a teacher assigns a student in class—those are professional decisions of the teacher and department and not the principal or other school administrators.  I believe tight scripting of classroom content and sequencing by state Boards of Education, or local boards, principals or other administrators sends a clear message to faculty that they are NOT trusted professionals (who scripts doctor’s interactions with patients? Lawyers with clients?), and the unfortunate result of that messaging is faculty who begin to behave accordingly, passively receiving instructions about what to teach from someone else.

Angry parents some times want the principal to adjudicate disputes about a grade on an essay or to change a quarter grade. I don’t do that. I may advise a teacher privately on how to handle a situation, but I make it clear I will support them if the issue is a discretionary decision on their part. On the flip side, faculty must stand tall, and not pass on their decision-making authority up the ladder, as we’re all tempted to do when a decision we must make is unpopular.

Subsidiarity is the correct organizational principle.

In Catholic social teachings, the “principle of subsidiarity” means that things should be handled at the most local level possible. There is wisdom to this. From 10,000 feet, it’s impossible to distinguish a rich man’s crops from a poor man’s, but at ground level, one can detect irrigation systems, the quality of machinery, and which crops are plusher and greener. So too with school administration: the more decision making authority a school can invest in those closest to the “action,” the better--thus my belief that grades are teachers to give, not the school administration.

Subsidiarity doesn’t mean, however, that some decisions are not appropriately made at higher level-rather, they should be made at the lowest level possible. As much as faculty may see things clearly in their classroom, they do not necessarily have a panoramic vision of the entirety of the school or the competing interests within a school. They are usually not able to weigh, as an example, why a school might add P.E. teachers and not English faculty for the purpose of obtaining strong coaches, but assign them P.E. classes because they might be poor teachers in the core classroom. They may not be able to understand why a colleague’s contract was non-renewed, because they weren’t privy to the months and sometimes years of private discussions between the principal and that colleague, or the improvement plan that was defined for him or her, or the myriad complaints the principal has received from parents about his or her job performance.  They may not understand the desires of the Board of Trustees, or fully understand the limitations of budgeting, or donors who designate their giving for a specific end—a batting cage, perhaps, instead of more computers or new smart board technology.   Just as principals must trust faculties to make decisions within their classroom relative to students, so too should faculties trust principals to make decisions that require a broad assessment of overall school needs. We each have important roles to play.

Boards are important strategic partners.

When Boards focus on long term strategic vision, the allocation of monies to make that strategic vision come to life, and the creation of policies to support the leadership of the school and to preserve and extend the school’s mission, they are hugely valuable co-partners in the leadership of the school with the principal. They bring the school wise counsel in areas reflecting their expertise, and their influence can often move diocesan officials, reluctant by nature to think in terms of new paradigms, to action.

I have been blessed to work with Boards who think and act in this way, and the result is they become dynamic forces for positive change in the life of a school. But that’s not always the case. By the very fact that most Board members are parents in the school, it is very easy for Boards to get sucked into the day to day drama that all schools experience: the unhappy daughter, upset by not making the cheerleading team, or the spouse of a Board member who is unhappy with a teacher, or the cranky faculty member, upset by a perceived slight.   When Boards intervene in these affairs--when they choose to entertain the complaints of constituent parties or presume to have authority in these matters-- the principal’s authority is chopped off at the knees.

Long-term thinking is hard, because we are creatures of the present, and it’s unnatural to think outside of our paradigms and beyond the set of assumptions we all carry within us, unreflectively. It also requires discipline and patience because the “rewards” of the work are deferred into the future. Resisting the urge to stay out of the day to day, by tasking committees meaningful work that move the school thoughtfully toward these longer-term goals, is the lynchpin for successful boards.

Principals must be persons of great optimism and faith.

There’s a very human tendency in all of us, when things go wrong, to blame leadership. Many Americans blame Obama for Russia invading Ukraine. When rioting and looting started in Los Angeles after the Rodney King decision, some city leaders blamed Bush for policies that they said contributed to the rioting. 

If parents are unhappy with a school, rather than people wondering if there is dysfunction within the family that causes the unhappiness, or if the child isn’t working hard enough, or if there are financial pressures that are embarrassing for the families to admit publicly, it’s much easier to blame the school principal. After twenty-five years, I can tell you that unwarranted blame still hurts, and that a faculty's or  family’s “happiness” is such a subjective thing that it’s almost impossible to respond to or substantively address. Even so, principals must remain positive and resist becoming defensive or allow the school to devolve into “factions.” They must look for ways to create healthy interactions between parents, students and teachers, and they must foster traditions that unite.

One of the simplest and most beautiful traditions of our school is “Senior Walk.” On the last day of school for seniors, two days before their graduation, our seniors line up on one end of the school, students and teachers come out of their classrooms and line the hallways, and while music is being played, seniors “walk the hallway” for the last time, hugging their teachers and friends. The relationships formed over four years—between teachers and seniors, between seniors and underclassmen, between seniors themselves—are evident for all to see, and very often, our seniors (the guys, too) are in tears.

We live in a culture that veers quickly to the negative and assumes the worst.  The quality of family life has deteriorated, and parents often feel so insecure in their relationships with their children, they feel compelled to “take their child’s side” against the school or teacher when their child has done something wrong. Thirty years ago students begged for us “not to tell our parents,” more worried about their parents’ punishment than whatever the school might dole out.   No more. Now more than ever, principals must be people of deep faith, who can see through the insecurities of others, forgive those who say or do inappropriate things, and move on, positively, without holding grudges. Now more than ever, principals really need to pray regularly and stay connected to the liturgical and sacramental life of our Church.