And fail they do.
Catholic schools in Los Angeles are dropping like flies. Things aren't going any better for Catholic schools across the nation. Only 15% of Catholic children are enrolled in Catholic schools - that's down from 20% just five years ago. At this rate, the entire thing will be gone before I hit retirement age.
Given how things have worked out in Kentucky, that's all for the best.
This is, of course, what I predicted in Designed to Fail: Catholic Education in America. If you want to know what happened and why, I lay the case out in spades there.
7 comments:
But some Catholic Schools are bursting at the seems with two year (or longer) waiting lists, and demand so high that the tuition exceeds that of many colleges.
that should be "seams"
The same trend is occurring for public schools, and not just in those districts that have had issues with middle and high school teachers dating pupils (2500 incidents in the last 4 years according to one study). Either home school is catching on in those areas or there is a serious child population decline in some regions of the country.
In our culture, we are expected to prolong our adolescence until we are nearly 40, so we shouldn't be surprised when adult teachers "date" (i.e. engage in sexual intercourse with) their students in grade school. Their just doing as our culture instructs them to do.
So what do you do if you're not sure homeschooling is for you? Where are you supposed to send your kids for an education?
Steve discusses that very question on pages 230-233, under the heading, "Beware of Homeschooling."
No, he's not trying to convince people not to homeschool -- he's just trying to advise parents that homeschool isn't easy and isn't for everyone.
One of Steve comments, from p.232:
"It is quite a rigorous day, properly done; not everyone is up for the whirl of events. If you know you cannot mentally or physically support that particularly taxing lifestyle, if you decide to send your children to parochial or public school or Catholic college, there is nothing wrong with that choice. As with homeschooling, we must simply keep a few things in mind. . . ."
Thanks, Jordan. "Designed to Fail" is one of Steve's books that I haven't gotten around to reading yet. I guess I'll just ahve to bug him for a copy.
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