Catholic Church Closing 22 Schools in Brooklyn and Queens

[Rose Siding]

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn announced the biggest round of school closings in the history of the city's Catholic education system today, citing plummeting enrollment, escalating costs and the shifting demographics of neighborhoods across Brooklyn and Queens.

Twenty-two Catholic elementary schools in the two boroughs, with a total enrollment of more than 4,000 students, will shut their doors for good at the end of the school year, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio announced. The decision slashes the number of schools in the diocese by 15 percent.

The schools, like Transfiguration in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Ascension in Elmhurst, Queens, have been cornerstones of their neighborhoods for decades, some for more than a century, and have provided a critical refuge and stepping-stone for children - Catholic and otherwise - in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city.

But the schools lost an average of one-third of their students in the last five years, diocese officials said, as the demographics of the city's Catholic school population skewed poorer and the deepening shortage of nuns and priests drove up salary costs for lay teachers and administrators.

http://nytimes.com/2005/02/09/education/09cnd-close.html?hp&ex=1108011600&en=6f9dd56b035edbe6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[jmcgowanjm]

1. America needs all of its children to be educated, not just a select few.

Catholics used to control all learning.

They had their chance.

Now, who's going to pay for the pope's funeral?

http://www.idra.org/Newslttr/1999/May/Albert2.htm

[stepnw1f]

2. Now The Religious Right Can Brainwash All

Control... that's what this is about. Dog meet dog.

[jmcgowanjm]

7. Jane Jacobs-human ed. requires redundancy

It cannot be on a pay as you go system.

Because it takes tremendous amounts
of energy to keep and pass on the various
complexities of a culture.

Everyone has a job to do.

Perhaps the greatest folly possible
for a culture is to try to pass itself on
by using principles of efficiency.

Redundancy is expensive but indispensible.

There shouldn't be a credentialed teacher
w/o a job, and yet there are so many who
can't/won't handle the stress.

[mulethree]

3. Do you suppose the city school system will buy some of the buildings?

Maybe hire some of the teachers - since the public schools are so overcrowded?

[CaliforniaLady]

4. Buildings - maybe...teachers - NO!

Maybe the public school system could use the buildings, but only if they are not "religious-looking".

I would think the teachers of Catholic schools might be biased, so they would not be good candidates for public education.

[DemBones DemBones]

5. That's some assumption you're making, that teachers

in Catholic schools are "biased." In reality, I think you'll find as much and quite probably more bias among public school teachers, and I base that on far too many lunches eaten at the teachers' table, listening to public school teachers gossip.

My experience suggests that public schools would be lucky to get most of these displaced teachers. There are some excellent teachers who willingly teach for low salaries in Catholic schools because Catholic schools can require and get good behavior from their students. Most would never go back to public schools because they know that too many parents of kids in public school will not work with the school to help their children behave properly and do their schoolwork.

[greeklady]

6. Good teachers are hard to find

I agree with you. Good teachers are so hard to find I think it would be terrible to discount getting some of these.