Why? Because Carol is not afraid to criticize the school for not forming its students in authentic Catholic teaching, particularly in regard to homosexuality.

I covered the situation in my Sept. 22 column.

I’m absolutely appalled by this turn of events, and it seems the offending students have no fear of being disciplined by the school, as evidenced by their vile comments on Carol’s blog.

One comment, made by student Evan Grande, states (excerpted):

‘…If I could deracinate one thing from society, it would be religions zealotry [sic], namely that of Carol McKinley and her allies, and their steadfast hatred or [sic] homosexuality….I plan to get as many people as I can informed about you and your friends, and who knows, I might just rustle up the money to start up an abortion mill in the process (I hear they’re quite profitable these days). If you’re wondering who to report to the bishop, I’ll save you the searching: my name is Evan Grande and I am also a senior at Sacred Heart. I hope that you’re scared Carol, because I’m crazy, and I’m VERY VERY loud. I hope you’ve got your back exits marked, because I’m waiting for you. But worst of all, I’m having fun with you, Carol, and I don’t plan to stop any time soon….’

Another comment, made by a student who identifies himself as Patrick, states:

‘My name is Patrick and I am a senior at Sacred Heart High School. You may remember me from that time you stalked my facebook…I thought you might. Anyway, in no way, shape, or form is this issue centered around the ‘adults.’ This is between the students and you ignorant humans called conservative catholics. I am seventeen years old and am perfectly capable of forming my own opinions, so please stop implying that kids my age are lower than you on the food chain. We both know that you are at the bottom with convicts and criminals.

‘In regards to Mr. Enos, just back off. He is a great administrator and knows exactly what he’s doing. He is highly respected among the student body and parents of students. Also, have you been slipping out the back door because you are afraid of what might happen if you are seen by students? My guess is that, yes, you are terrified. I would be too. It must tear you up inside to know that you have been defeated by 400 high school students. Oh well, you can’t win them all Carol. It’s a shame Alcatraz is no longer functioning because im [sic] sure we could have found a nice cozy little cell for you.

‘p.s.- Is there a reason you still creep on Sacred Heart doings when your daughter graduated years ago? That’s right, we know about your daughter. she graduated 6 years ago right? Regardless, you are an old woman picking fights with high schoolers. Congrats.’

But Carol isn’t picking fights with high school students. Nor are the other concerned parents. They’re objecting to the actions — and inaction — of school officials.

I should point out that Carol did not ask me to write this follow-up column. I’m simply disgusted that such thuggish behavior is apparently tolerated, if not encouraged, by certain officials at Sacred Heart School. As we know, some teenagers are more than capable of committing heinous crimes. Such threats must be taken seriously.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Many of the critics of textbook prices note that professors do not have an economic incentive to consider price. This is correct. We get our copies free from the publishers. My students’ education and learning experience is at the forefront of my decision making rather than their wallets.

For my PSYC 101, Foundations of Psychological Science course, I use Exploring Psychology by David Myers. A used copy can be purchased from the Grove City College bookstore for $67. I require a supplemental text that offers a Christian perspective, which costs $11 for a used copy. Many students essentially rent their textbooks, reselling most of them at the end of the semester, with the net cost about half of what they paid at the beginning of the semester. New books cost considerably more, of course, and when editions change the books cannot be resold.

There are some discount textbook publishers that offer new textbooks for less than a typical used text. Is the book I use really better than these? Yes. The author, David Myers, has been writing textbooks longer than my students have been alive. As a result, his writing is more engaging, the examples are better, and the content is more complete than what I have found when considering discount textbooks.

Furthermore, the price of a top-notch textbook includes more than just the book. The publisher of the text I use provides me with DVDs of short videos demonstrating the research we are considering. Many students have told me that these videos are very helpful in their understanding of the material. The instructor manual that comes with a top-quality textbook provides a wealth of activities and suggestions. My courses have been made richer due to publisher-provided materials. Online-study tools for the students are provided as well. The costs of these materials are paid by textbook purchasers who may not connect these benefits to the price of their books.

For students who keep their books, e-books may one day offer an attractive alternative. Grove City College recently asked faculty and students to evaluate current e-book technology. The college found that e-books currently lack the capability to highlight and make notes efficiently. On the other hand, a benefit is that students could easily carry their entire reference library with them.

An intriguing alternative is that professors should create reading lists of articles that students would read instead of a textbook. This has worked well for me with my upper-level courses. I am teaching two upper-level courses this fall. One course has no textbook, and the books for the other course cost only $16.50. I am able to do this because the college purchases an institutional Copyright Clearance Center license, which is paid for via tuition. There are no free lunches, but some lunches are discounted.

Could I do this with my lower-level classes? Lower-level courses broadly expose students to a field. To use readings rather than a text requires finding readings that cover the broad range of topics, which are written for novices while being scholarly. I am doubtful that a sufficient number of suitable articles exist to replace an introductory textbook.

In short, I see value in what publishers add to my class. Would students be willing to give this up for lower cost? If they were, would the overall result be better or worse? I am convinced that the net cost to students for the books I assign is a good educational value. Plans to legislate lower prices may be popular, but lower prices with high quality cannot be legislated. Most faculty are faculty because we like students and are concerned about their welfare. We discuss the cost of textbooks and pedagogy in person and online. If something better than textbooks comes along, it will soon be widely provided to students. Textbooks are expensive, but they and the other products produced by textbook publishers are valuable educational resources.

Teaching kids is supposed to be a family responsibility. At the least, schools were meant to be locally run with advice from elected boards from the community. Sadly, some school boards in the past – too many I think – have become entrenched with careerists and political types with their eyes on higher office or sinister agendas. Don’t believe me? Look at the resumes of some of your county, and state officials in various positions.

Texas is a big, populous state and to put it crudely a major market for school books; and only a week or so before the WSJ article appeared, I saw another published piece in Education Week on text book content and publishing costs that suggested that innovative digital and online sources would allow greater flexibility in the fine tuning of content to a school district’s proclivity in telling a story – in the matter we are addressing here – the story of America. Many big city liberals don’t like having to take what a publisher gives them when the content reflects a pro-Constitution, pro-middle America mindset. And the reverse is also true.

What is emphasized at school sometimes works to the disadvantage of the truth. I went to school in the 1950s and 1960s and one thing I’ve noticed in my post graduate work as a functioning adult is that The Progressive Era didn’t get taught back then. Woodrow Wilson was characterized as the hero of the innocuous “14 points” – not the promoter of a one world righteously enlightened order. And that story about FDR’s advisers – that some of them had met with the USSR’s Stalin and were strong advocates of collectivized farming – didn’t appear in any text books I ever saw: not in grade school, not in high school, not in college.

When I watch ACTON’s film The Birth of Freedom – the part where Rodney Stark talks about being “taught the dark ages” – I nod in agreement. A lot of U.S. history and history in general has a thin outline as far as school texts are concerned. I was taught “the dark ages” too. Yet if they were so dark, how did the sea compass get invented; the plow, the axle, harnesses? Somebody must have turned on a light somewhere.

As historian John Lakacs writes in the ISI volume A Student’s Guide to the Study of History, history is where we “re-mind” ourselves of what happened in the past. Unfortunately, curriculum choices and wrong emphasis has created at least three generations in The United States that need to be “re-booted” after some significant software downloads. (In that we’re taking Lukacs more literally than he had figured.)

And it’s not just Texas that’s having curriculum battles. In South Carolina, a revised curriculum proposed by the academics was going to ignore American History before 1877 until parents started shouting NO when it occurred to them that 1877 is a convenient date to start only if you want to leave out the founding of the country and all the founding documents.

One of the downloads in this re-minding project all families need to consider is another UD professor Tom West’s book Vindicating The Founders, wherein he takes on the misrepresentations of our history that are often promoted in today’s classrooms. In his chapter “Women and the Family” West does a good job of addressing the oft lamented despair of today’s feminists concerning women’s rights during the Colonial period. West’s is an explanation that considers times long past and relies on the reader’s understanding of human nature and the context in which society functioned.

Then, the family was a unit of special and particular value for which there was an ideal example – Adam and Eve. A husband was a protector, a provider. A wife was the nurturing partner who bore and raised children and knew how to shoot when his absence required it. They had become “one flesh” in the sacrament of marriage and made decisions as a unit within God’s ideal. Voting and property and “rights” were bound to that ideal. It’s understandable for those times, but today….

(This article is a product of the Acton Institute — www.acton.org, 161 Ottawa NW, Suite 301, Grand Rapids, MI 49503 — and is reprinted with permission.)

This guidebook gives a unique perspective on Catholic education, its history and the roots of the current economics troubles.  Although the target audience is philanthropists who seek to make a difference in the education of our children, it is worthy reading for any Catholic school board member or administrator who is involved with school finance.

The guidebook begins with a succinct summary of the causes of the economic challenges of the urban Catholic school.  The major causes are identified as declining vocations and shifting demographics.  But others such as aging facilities, calcification of practices, competition with charter schools, consistency, credibility and confusion are also identified.  The guidebook reminds us that Catholic schools pre-date public schools in this country and those Catholic schools have saved the public billions of dollars by educating millions of our children without public assistance.  The quality and impact of Catholic schools is noteworthy and thus philanthropic efforts to preserve them are worth pursuing.

The guidebook highlights six priorities that investors should consider to increase the likelihood that their investments in Catholic schools have long-term consequences.  The first is Funding Private Scholarships – paying the tuition of students in need.  This is the simplest and most common method to helping schools.  The effect is immediate and can be used as a tool for school accountability.

The second priority is creating Performance Driven Schools.  This priority suggests donors find ways to make sure that the schools are offering a quality educational product and are being run in a financially sound way.  Underperforming schools need to change and creative and transparent methods of improving the school income and cost controls must be explored.

The third priority is to Develop and Replicate New School Models to increase the numbers of Catholic schools.  Not only do we need to make existing schools competitive, we also need to find new ways to increase the supply of Catholic schools.  Examples of models worth replicating are the NativityMiguel Network of schools and the Cristo Rey Network.  The history and design of these new models are explained.

The fourth priority is Rethinking Governance.  The guidebook describes the organization of the Church and defines Church terms for philanthropists that are not Catholic.  This includes the difference between parochial schools and schools built by religious orders.  With the increased lay involvement in the function of the schools and the increase work-load of diocesan Priests, new governance structures are being defined.  Private academies and school consortia are considered.  Boards, administrators and clergy must work together in school leadership.

The fifth priority addresses the Human Capital Challenge.  Schools run by lay people with families to support simply cost more to run than schools run by religious.  Inner city schools are especially vulnerable to economic problems since they do not have the tuition base that wealthier suburban schools have.  Notre Dame’s Ace program is highlighted as one innovative way to address the human resource problem.  Finding and developing committed teachers and administrators is critical for the success of Catholic schools.

The sixth priority considered is the need to Change Public Policy.  Not only are Catholic schools now competing with public schools, but they are also competing with charter schools and other private schools.  As more educational choices are given to parents, can school choice and vouchers ever be used for Catholic schools?  There has been success in various places for the use of public money in Catholic schools.  However, public funding of schools must be coupled with quality education and sound financial practices.  Expansion of school choice to include Catholic schools must be a continued focus.

Philanthropists who donate to Catholic Schools run the gamut from devout Catholics to atheists.  Throughout the guidebook, various philanthropic ventures into Catholic education are highlighted – some of which are faith based, many are not.  The goals of the various donors vary – but they are not necessarily incompatible.  A chapter devoted specifically to Catholic identity raises interesting questions as to whether maintaining Catholic identity is necessary or important.  The changing of Catholic schools to charter schools is highlighted with both its advantages and disadvantages.

The guidebook finishes with ten great ideas in need of funding which include:  Charter Conversions, New School Models, Networking with Public schools, Performance-management, Increasing ACE, Public Policy changes, Use of Technology, Use of Incentives, Encouraging Vocations, and Use of Tithing.

This guidebook gives Catholic administrators a unique perspective on school funding.    Inherent in the discussion is whether public or private schools with the “trappings” of Catholic schools (academic excellence, sound morals) are good enough to deliver everything that Catholic schools have provided.  The new players in the field of education (charter schools, etc.) are doing just that.

The guidebook is available through the Philanthropist Roundtable and can be downloaded from their website.

“[W]e are setting an ambitious goal: all students should graduate from high school prepared for college and a career – no matter who you are or where you come from.” – Barack Obama, Saturday Radio Address.

A few years ago I asked a friend and business owner why he put value on a college diploma when talking with entry level talent who had majored in subjects incredibly tangential to his job descriptions. He answered, “Well, it shows they can finish something.” That’s a pretty weak reason for a student and/or his family to lay out $50,000 to $250,000 of tuition and lost opportunity costs but I let him have his fantasy.

Former Heritage Foundation analyst Dan Lips lays out another kind of fantasy in National Review Online with a proposal to meet Obama’s goal in last weekend’s broadcast in light of the increasing cost of college in the U.S.. It’s a version of “virtual learning” accomplished online. That’s certainly not “college as we knew it” and not as it might or should be – a place where one seeks Truth and learns how to think – but maybe that education is unretrievable. Maybe all we can hope for are certificates of accomplishment in niche fields and employers like my friend.

Yet even with Lips’ online world, any bureaucracy including the academy deserves some closer inspection before we all jump on the web to search out our next degree. But this only makes sense if you agree with my premise that college has more of a role to play in one’s life than assuring a potential employer that you can “finish” something. Mr. Lips is rightly concerned about affordability – I’m thinking relevance.

And relevance is the subject of a disquieting piece in The Wall Street Journal concerning the recent frauds orbiting climate science both in the U.S. and abroad. Peter Berkowitz lays out the case pretty convincingly that today’s academy is spellbound in protecting an array of niche ideas that include and depend on the elimination of what has been known as “the core” – the set of courses some also call the Canon that has woven our society together in years past with threads of tradition and reason. Its absence and the incestuous relations tenured professors have with new hires has resulted in a system where “our universities don’t recognize they have a problem” and “are inclined to indignantly dismiss concerns about the curriculum, peer review, and hiring, promotion and tenure decisions as cynically calling into question their good character.”

When I was in college the wave of courses now dejure was just forming offshore so we still studied what people had studied for ever and if you were interested in something oblique to the syllabus you read a book and wrote a paper for extra credit. Outsourced guest lecturers filled the gaps by invitation.

Today at all but a few colleges and universities a look down the lists of additional majors and departments includes what are referred to above as “niche” ideas and at my alma mater that list within the liberal arts includes American Indian Studies, Chicano/Chicana Studies, Deaf Studies, Gender and Women Studies, Human Sexuality Studies, Modern Jewish Studies, Urban Studies & Planning, Pan African Studies, Asian American Studies, Central American Studies, African-American Studies. Why no “Rural American Studies” you ask? Some of these emphasize “interdisciplinary, cross-cultural and transnational focus.” Each section has a dean, each a support staff, each require classrooms. Multiply that across the spectrum of academia and you start to see the inflation that has been responsible for driving the cost of a college degree skyward.

But can online learning – arguably an oxymoron for many courses and disciplines – save that much money? And will the “core” continue to be abandoned?

“There are no good pedagogical reasons for abandoning the core,” writes Mr. Berkowitz. “Professors and administrators argue that students need and deserve the freedom to shape their own course of study. But how can students who do not know the basics make intelligent decisions about the books they should read and the perspectives they should master? The real reasons for releasing students from rigorous departmental requirements and fixed core courses are quite different. One is that professors prefer to teach boutique classes focusing on their narrow areas of specialization. In addition, they believe that dropping requirements will lure more students to their departments, which translates into more faculty slots for like-minded colleagues. By far, though, the most important reason is that faculty generally reject the common sense idea that there is a basic body of knowledge that all students should learn. This is consistent with the popular campus dogma that all morals and cultures are relative and that objective knowledge is impossible.”

To our discussion comes Truth’s dear friend Fr. James Schall – who teaches at prestigious Georgetown University – with recent essays that appear at First Principles Journal.

In an article about classroom configuration and technology advancements, Schall, who has banned computers in his classroom, writes: “The essential point, I think, is that teaching and learning are human enterprises”…and, “is something human and personal, even when it is about teaching bugs.”

In another article provided at mid term, Schall offers students in his political philosophy course a heads up for the semester’s second half: “You are asked questions in class not to embarrass you but to carry on a conversation.” That’s got me thinking Fortitude, Confidence, Faith. And you reader?

While an online class might relieve a student from noticing the wondering glances of their mates or the looming presence of a roaming Schall, what might be its consequence when my business owner friend got the online graduate on board and the lad or lass was presented with a confrontational dilemma? Would they break down or face it unafraid and prepared to parry with logic and good eye contact.

There are no lectures in Schall’s classes. “You have to come into each class with something already in your head which you have just put there in your personal reading,” he writes. “If you do not understand something, ask,” he advises students. “It is no crime. It is a ‘crime,’ however, if I ask you whether you read the assignment and you lie to me. Actually, I do not think that happens much,” he adds, “which pleases me.”

That cannot be assumed of Mr. Berkowitz’s climate crowd. Nor is it assured with college on line. Not without formation and “the core.”

The boy’s father, Chester Johnson, said he got a call earlier this month from the school informing him that his son, a second-grade student with special education needs, had created a violent drawing and was being sent home. The image depicted a crucified Jesus with Xs covering his eyes to signify that he had died on the cross.

“As far as I’m concerned, they’re violating his religion,” Johnson said. “They told me he would have to leave the school and get a psychological evaluation, which I didn’t see necessary for the picture that was drawn. Especially after I told them he went to the La Salette on Thanksgiving with his mom. I didn’t see anything wrong with the picture that was drawn.”

The boy and his family had recently gone to see a Christmas display at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, a Catholic retreat center in Attleboro.

Toni Saunders, an educational consultant with the Associated Advocacy Center who is working with the boy and his parents, told the Taunton Gazette, “I think what happened is that because he put Xs in the eyes of Jesus, the teacher was alarmed and they told the parents they thought it was violent. They weren’t looking at the fact that this is an 8-year-old child with special needs.”

“They made him leave school, and they recommended that a psychiatrist do an evaluation,” Saunders said. “When I got that call, I was so appalled that I had to do something,” she added.

Maxham School principal Rebecca Couet refused to comment to the media about the event and referred all questions to the superintendent’s office.

Superintendent Julie Hackett told the Taunton Gazette that district policy prevents her from discussing a “confidential matter regarding a student.”

School committee member Christine Fagan told WBZ radio, “I find the decision very disappointing. But I think there’s so much pressure now on people to look for all kinds of things. I think that’s what generates these types of responses. I think we really need to be careful about how far we want to take this idea of political correctness.”

The boy’s father said the school overreacted and his son was traumatized by the incident. The school district subsequently approved the family’s request to have the child transferred to another school.

“This is a highly intelligent kid. He gets 100′s on his tests,” Johnson told WBZ.

“I want him transferred to another school and I want something done about this. They owe my family an apology and they owe me an apology and what they can do is keep giving my son the education that he needs and work with him.”

Kerri Augusto, a professor of psychology and family studies at Becker College told WBZ that the school did more harm than good for the boy.

“More disturbing than the knee-jerk interpretation of this child’s drawing, is the response of the school,” Augusto said.

“The extreme lengths to which the administration went to ‘protect’ the child, resulted in punishment for the child and his/her family and shows blatant disregard for the child’s social and emotional needs.”
To contact Maxham Elementary School with your opinion/comment:

Rebecca Couet – Principal
Lowell M. Maxham School
141 Oak Street
Taunton, Massachusetts
Phone: 508-821-1265
Fax: 508-821-1274
Email: RCouet@tauntonschools.org

To contact Superintendent Julie Hackett with your opinion/comment:
Taunton Public Schools District Office
Dr. Julie Hackett – Superintendent of Schools
110 County Street
Taunton, MA 02780
Phone: 508-821-1203
Email: jhackett@tauntonschools.org

Yet, this right has been imperfectly recognized for some time. Pursuing the goal of universal education, a worthy end in itself, nineteenth-century reformers gradually concentrated in city, state, and national governments the funding and control of what had been a predominantly non-governmental, disparate, and radically local regime of education. Immediately, the move toward unitary systems fueled conflict over a neuralgic point of America’s pluralist experiment: Protestant-Catholic relations. Controversy over schooling was one of the combustible ingredients leading to explosions of violence in cities such as Philadelphia and New York during the 1830s and 1840s.

A modus vivendi was reached when Catholics determined to build their own parochial system. The Supreme Court guaranteed the legality of the Catholic parochial system in its 1925 Pierce decision, and soon Catholics in the United States would build the largest private school system in the world. At its height in 1965, the system was comprised of 13,500 schools serving 5.6 million students across primary (4.5 million) and secondary levels.

Meanwhile, battles over public school curricula continued, as constituencies of many varieties perceived that what they viewed as an appropriate education for their children was not served by a public system that inexorably drifted toward a lowest-common-denominator form of education. Some religious groups such as Lutherans and Dutch Reformed began or maintained their own schools, and parents seeking social status or demanding rigorous standards enrolled their children in private academies.

A Hybrid System

Thus, the pluralist ideal survived but in a deformed shape. The right of parents to direct their children’s education was recognized in theory, but in practice every citizen was compelled to pay for the government school system. The result was an arrangement unjust at its core. Parents devoted to a particular form of education for religious or other reasons might choose to sacrifice other goods to fund their children’s education outside of the government system. For wealthy families, the choice might come easily; for most, the decision was difficult. The incentive to participate in the government system was strong, and genuine freedom in education remained an elusive ideal.

We have thus come to the present, a hybrid system of private schools increasingly off-limits to the working and even middle classes and state schools plagued by inefficiencies, inequities, and in some cases, abject failure. By no means does this generalization denigrate the good work that thousands of educators in both private and public systems do every day. Some religious schools strive ardently to keep open the prospect of a first-rate education for students of poor parents and challenging backgrounds. Some public schools provide outstanding academic and extracurricular opportunities for their students. Yet, too many students are, despite political rhetoric and flawed legislation, “left behind.”

Conscientious parents naturally assert their freedom whenever given the opportunity. School district choice among public systems is extremely popular. Private school spots available through vouchers in locales such as Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C., have been grasped as quickly as they appear. Charter schools have exhibited some widely publicized hazards, but on the whole they have been successful, an affordable alternative to traditional public schools. Finally, an increasing number of parents have opted out of conventional educational models altogether: Some two million students were homeschooled in 2008.

Positive developments in the political and legal culture of education have permitted these exercises of liberty, resulting in tremendous gains in parent satisfaction, cost efficiency, and most importantly, student achievement. Still, old ways of thinking, archaic prejudices, and special interests remain formidable obstacles on the path to further progress. To encourage continued improvements in education—in whichever setting that may occur—parents must be granted greater control over and responsibility for their schooling choices. At its root, this means breaking the stranglehold on education dollars that government systems currently enjoy. It means returning control of that money to parents.

Parents In Control

Obviously Catholic and other private schools stand to gain from such reform, but proposing it is far from special pleading. The appeal and urgency of school choice lies precisely in its implications for the common good of all children—regardless of religious persuasion or socio-economic status. Indeed, the exact outcome of extending educational freedom is hard to predict: that is the nature of freedom. What is certain is that the worst elements of the current state-run systems would not be tolerated, for no parent wants her child to fail.

Returning financial control to parents sets in motion a series of favorable developments: Parents demand excellence of the schools; administrators demand excellence of the teachers; students and teachers alike thrive on the fertilizer of high expectations. The potential of parental responsibility and educational choice has already been demonstrated; it remains to enshrine these concepts in the nation’s culture and law.

Some skeptical observers may suspect that school choice is but a stalking horse for public funding of religious institutions. They may guess that tax breaks for tuition, for example, are intended primarily or even exclusively to enhance the bottom line of private schools. In a climate of public schooling challenges, when large numbers of students are failing to achieve basic competency, they wonder, should we not focus our resources on public schools?

Public education is, indeed, facing its own crisis, one differing in some ways from that confronting Catholic education. More than 25 percent of public school students fail to graduate high school, but this figure masks a dramatic socio-economic divergence: The dropout rate for poor students is ten times that of wealthier students. Public schooling in the United States is thus highly stratified. Good districts enjoy healthy levels of funding through property taxes, while the tax base of poor districts leads to lower levels for the most challenging student populations. Yet, funding has become the focus of accusations of inequity to the detriment of the debate over improving public education. The per capita spending per student, even in poor districts, far exceeds the per capita spending at Catholic schools, yet Catholic schools enjoy better outcomes on a range of indicators.

Spurring Reform

There are a number of factors contributing to this relative inefficiency in the public system. State and federal regulations on everything from classroom safety to teacher qualifications, while well intended, are excessive and do not adequately permit for local variation or administrative judgment. Teacher unions secure pay scales higher than a market rate (and significantly higher than most private schools). Lacking a rational system of incentives for cutting costs, waste is endemic in many public schools.

Like Catholic schools, public education has been a highly successful means of enabling Americans of every socio-economic and ethnic background to gain the knowledge and skill necessary to be productive citizens. Yet, if American education is to succeed for future generations of its students, reform and improvement are necessary. In too many cases, public schools have too little to show for the resources that they absorb.

In this context, school choice represents a promising method for spurring improvement. Most parents desire solid education for their children in a safe and supportive environment. Too many public schools do not provide such an environment. Available evidence suggests that competition among individual schools and among districts encourages academic improvement. Despite heated rhetoric to the contrary, it is not true that school choice measures drain public schools of resources. Implementation of choice, because of the positive incentives it frames, results in a more efficient allocation of available educational resources, benefiting all students.

Competition has in some circles accumulated negative connotations. It is associated with a cutthroat or winner-takes-all mentality. Yet, there is a more benign understanding of competition that recognizes it as a useful motivation in human endeavor. Countless teachers and institutions throughout the history of schooling have recognized its potential, staging various kinds of contests ranging from quiz bowls to science fairs to academic honor rolls. Conducted in the proper spirit, these contests are not harmful, elevating those who perform well at the expense of those who do not. Instead, they encourage all students to strive for excellence, recognizing that while not all will attain it, all will benefit from the exercise. Our educational systems would do well to restore this sense of competition to the educational enterprise as a whole. School choice is one reform that can contribute to this end.

Genuine Diversity

A final mark in favor of school choice is that it respects the pluralism inherent in contemporary culture. Diversity raises understandable concerns about assimilation and the creation of a common culture adequate to restrain the potentially damaging centrifugal forces of ethnic and religious tensions. Yet, fear of difference goes too far when it demands uniformity, and nowhere is enforcement of such uniformity as tempting or as easily accomplished as in government-managed primary and secondary education.

In light of this, the proliferation of genuine diversity in education that would almost certainly result from a vigorous implementation of school choice would better honor the rightful autonomy of individuals and families. Devoutly religious parents would not be forced to choose between an education that integrates their theological views but at the cost of painful financial sacrifice and a free school that undermines or at least fails to buttress the principles that they hold dear. Even with respect to purely academic pursuits, diversity could be honored. While a genuine education must cover certain basic fields, students might legitimately choose schools with particular strength in various areas such as science, visual arts, or literature.

The benefits of school choice are many, which should not be surprising. When parents are encouraged to take responsibility for their children’s education, both parents and students begin to view education in a different light. Shifting parents and children from a position of dependency on government to a position of empowerment promotes a vision of persons as participants in society, rather than observers or dependents.

There will, of course, be parents who neglect their responsibilities. There will always be roles for charitable institutions and governments to ensure that everything possible is done to given children of negligent parents the opportunity to excel. This is hardly a strike against school choice: Even now the parental background of students plays a major if not decisive role in the potential for successful completion of students’ educational regimen. Policy should be formulated to support good parents and encourage mediocre ones; it should not be designed under the assumption that all parents are deficient.

School choice, then, far from being a concession to special interests, is a plan for reforming troubled schools, rewarding excellent schools, and empowering parents and students to take responsibility for seeking and attaining the education they deem necessary and appropriate for participation in a contemporary world. It is good for individuals, and it is good for society.

Dr. Paul Kengor: Dr. Wolfe, you’ve led a fascinating life. From a remarkable career in advertising to your work in free-market education and Christian education. But let’s start from the beginning, which, in your case, is quite interesting: When were you born, and who were your parents?

Wolfe: I was born in New York City on June 5^th, 1919—from a liberal, college-professor Dad and a conservative get-things-done Mom.

Kengor: Your mother was not political. You called her an “old-fashioned working girl, a non-philosophical American free-enterpriser.” That’s not the case with your father. Your father, Dr. Ernest J. Wolfe, studied and taught with Ruth Bryan Owen, who was the daughter of the great William Jennings Bryan, the liberal Democrat of her day, and was ensconced at the University of Miami at Coral Gables, Florida. But your father ended up moving quite far to the left, politically. He became a Marxist, right?

Wolfe: Yes, became a Marxist as an all-out personal conviction, but that was not something he advocated on the job. Dad never especially publicized his Marxism.

Kengor: Your father ended up at Columbia University? Was this in the 1930s? What department?

Wolfe: Yes, in the 1930s, in the economics and history departments. At Columbia University, and the University of Miami he taught economics with the intention to provide a historic background that would show that the American people faced some sort of economic crisis, and various parts of the population, such as the elderly or the unemployed, needed some kind of social security from the U.S. government.

My Dad’s proposal resulted in the Social Security system America has today.

Kengor: He was close to Columbia economists like R.G. Tugwell, correct? Tugwell was well-known for his interest in the Soviet experiment, as recently profiled in Amity Shlaes’ book, The Forgotten Man. (For the record, Ms. Shlaes will be the keynote at our conference on progressivism next April.)

Wolfe: The only kind of economics my Dad wanted me to teach was socialism, but I never did, and l never promised to. He may have kind of dreamed of me going out and winning thousands of ignorant students to socialism, just as I aspired to win them to Christ, but my Dad never succeeded in winning me to any of his radical views.

Essentially, my Dad felt things I never felt. He felt rich Americans were bad, that there was no right or moral way for one person to earn or get a lot more money than other people had. He felt that essentially all Americans should have about the same amount of money or wealth, and that it should come from a generous government, from Uncle Sam, not from energetic individuals acquiring land or building a uniquely useful business, or selling exceptionally valuable products.

You asked how my father sought to make me a communist. Was it by giving me persuasive literature or certain books? Yes, and there are loads of those, but I didn’t find them either very interesting or convincing. I told my father I had enough to read for school—first for high school, then for college. Like most boys, I needed some time for recreation and some time for sports. Dad felt both were more or less a waste of time. We also disagreed on religion.

I felt religion was not just a ritual or a routine, that God existed, that He was real, that He loved me, that He loved everyone, and that He could bless everyone far more than He was currently, and that people first have to open themselves up to Him, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” My Dad expressed his religious beliefs toward me by sending me to the Ethical Culture Sunday School.

Kengor: Had not your father raised you to be a devoted Marxist, and to crusade for Marxism among college students? Is it true (George Cahill told me this) that you were literally conceived to be a communist? Or, at the least, that this you’re your father’s intention in having a child? (I’m sure it wasn’t your mother’s intention.)

Wolfe: It was never overtly stated as such. However, as my life unfolded it could very well have been so.

Kengor: How did your father try to make that happen? Did he give you communist literature? Did he send you to CPUSA meetings? Did he have you meet with party representatives around the country?

Instead, you went to the University of Arizona—which you chose because of the warm climate, and because you had serious health problems, then went to Mexico and had a religious experience, and your father, who in addition to being a Marxist, was a non-believer, an agnostic or atheist. He didn’t approve of your conversion, did he? How did your father react when you told him you had rejected his dream of his son being a Marxist?

Wolfe: By and large, when my father found I had no particular interest in his scheme for my life, he lost interest in my career.

Kengor: When you rejected that goal of your father, is it true that your father rejected you?

Wolfe: When he found I was not going to play out the dream he had conceived for my life, I would say he literally lost interest in my life.

Kengor: Your father left Columbia to work for FDR and the Social Security Board. Did you have much contact with your father after these New Deal years, and after the two of you split over Marxism?

Wolfe: No, once my father, Ernest J. Wolfe, left Columbia to work for FDR and his Social Security Board, he broke with all his past—with his wife, i.e., my mother and with me.

Kengor: Ultimately, you ended up earning a very successful living in advertising. For which firms did you work? You wrote a bestselling textbook on advertising?

Wolfe: I joined a radio station, WSTC, and wrote everything for the Stamford, Connecticut radio station, commercials, then joined a Brooklyn, New York station, WLIB, and wrote everything for them.

That prepared me to become a radio writer for the great advertising agency in New York, Batten, Batton, Durstine & Osborn, otherwise known as BBDO, where I wrote a best-selling textbook, Modern Radio and TV Advertising published by Funk & Wagnalls, which made me relatively famous, and I accepted a position as Television and Radio Creative Director of McCann-Erickson. This was challenging, lucrative and exciting, but left me little time for anything but my job.

I negotiated a new relationship with McCann-Erickson, through negotiation with Marion Harper Jr., the chief executive, in which I cut my work-time (and salary) in half, moved to California, and devoted the rest of my time to developing serious interests.

Kengor: Certainly you developed a very serious interest in economics, and actually joined the staff of the Foundation for Economic Education. How did that come about? Can you tell us about that experience? Did you encounter our own Hans Sennholz there?

Wolfe: I certainly did. I got to know and greatly admire Hans Sennholz. I also came to know and admire a man that Hans would agree was the world’s greatest economist, Ludwig von Mises.

Kengor: You also became concerned with the tragic drift to the extreme left by American higher education. Tell us what you saw in higher education, and when? Which colleges, in your view, have stayed true to both faith and freedom, including a respect for market freedom?

Wolfe: That is a profound and complex question I would not like to answer here in the midst of this casual conversation. It is a question which for a long time did not need to be asked, but now does need to be. It makes choosing a college much more difficult.

Kengor: You sent your son, Gregory, to Hillsdale. Gregory is an excellent scholar and writer, whose work includes a superb biography of Malcolm Muggeridge. You’re a big fan of both Hillsdale and Grove City College. Tell us about that.

Wolfe: To a large extent, America’s original intellectual foundation was built around a handful of distinguished colleges—beginning with Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia. In the last century, and especially in the Great Depression, as we lost confidence in our country’s original foundations—in the Bible and Pilgrim and Puritan scholarship, we began to accept a new array of secular liberal European scholars into our premier universities, who moved them leftward, eroded their colleges’ character, confused their teaching of history, and opened the way for a new wave of truth-seeking colleges such as Hillsdale and Grove City.

To make a firm point of reference, referring to someone we both know—or are somewhat familiar with—after high school, Greg was determined to attend Harvard. I talked with him at length, and introduced him to Dr. George Roche, the young and very bright president of Hillsdale; they talked at great length, and Dr. Roche introduced Greg to one of Hillsdale’s most distinguished Professors, Dr. Russell Kirk. After several hours of conversation, they became fast friends. Greg came to me and said, “Dad, I don’t want to go to Harvard. I want to go to Hillsdale.” Greg never regretted that decision.

Kengor: You also developed a deep interest in America’s Christian history. You’ve done a lot of lecturing on that subject over the years. Tell us about that. Tell us also about your work with the late D. James Kennedy and Coral Ridge Ministries.

Wolfe: I came to admire Dr. Kennedy’s knowledge of America’s Christian history simply as a listener. Then he invited me to join his ministry in Fort Lauderdale, and it was a great pleasure. Among my students there was a talented young man named Dr. Jerry Newcombe who became Dr. Kennedy’s senior producer of his television productions. In his fine volume, The Book That Made America, he devoted the entire first page to a letter from me!

Kengor: How does all of this tie in to your involvement with the Plymouth Rock Foundation? You live today in Plymouth, Massachusetts. We’re approaching the 400^th anniversary of the Plymouth Landing of the Pilgrims?

Wolfe: Twenty-five years ago, in celebrating the 350^th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ famous landing, a great Christian musician, the marimba artist Dr. Jack Conner, played a concert sponsored by one of Plymouth’s leading citizens, John G. Talcott Jr. In a discussion after the concert, Mr. Talcott asked Dr. Conner for his ideas about how Plymouth should celebrate that event. The marimba artist said, “I know a man who’s written very well about the Pilgrims, a New Yorker named Dr. Charles Hull Wolfe. I’d like to ask him about his ideas.” That’s what Dr. Conner did.

He came to New York on a concert, talked to me about Plymouth, invited me to come with him on a visit to Mr. Talcott, which I promptly did. Finding there was not a single organization devoted solely to perpetuating the spiritual significance of the Pilgrims, and enriching the religious understanding of their lives, I proposed that Mr. Talcott and I, then and there, form such an institution. He quickly agreed, brought a competent attorney to his home, and together we drew up the document; thus was born The Plymouth Rock Foundation.

Kengor: Dr. Wolfe is there anything else you would like to say?

Wolfe: Yes, I would like to speak with you again sometime to share what I perceive to be the strategy to help lead Americans back to our deep spiritual roots of true liberty. The Biblical Principle Approach to Education. Whether by Home School or Christian School the overwhelming empirical evidence is in. By giving our current generation, as well as future generations, a Biblical World View and the ability to reason from a Biblical Principled Approach, we will free the slaves to secular humanism that now have them all in chains.

Kengor: Dr. Charles Hull Wolfe, you’re a true apostle of faith and freedom. Thank you very much for talking to us.

Wolfe: Thank you for having me. I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing what the Lord has done in and through me these past 90 years. May the Lord bless your efforts and writings.

Chris Klicka studied law after his Grove City College years at O.W. Coburn School of Law in Oklahoma and was hired in 1985 as the first executive director of an organization that had been formed by another tenacious fighter for educational and religious freedom, Mr. Michael Farris. His new position was with the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). The organization charged a reasonable annual fee to parents who were home schooling. The pooled fees were used to provide a legal defense fund for those who located in states in which laws and courts were hostile to the efforts of parents whose only “transgression” was that they had chosen to home-educate their children.

Basically, the compulsory attendance laws in most states were a product of an earlier era in which state legislatures had attempted to prevent children from working in factories and on farms by compelling them to get an education. Unfortunately, the courts and state departments of education had interpreted that requirement to mean that the education had to be provided by a conventional day school, public or private. In the 1970s and 1980s, the traditional school choices offered to parents had become less attractive and some began to look for alternatives. However, the idea of home schooling in the eyes of public school principals, superintendents, social workers and most state court judges was still foreign and frankly somewhat threatening. Their response was to prosecute parents, who dared to provide education another way, under the compulsory attendance laws.

In the early 1980s, Pennsylvania was called by HSLDA one of the “worst states” in the country for home schoolers. Many of the threatened moms and dads in Western Pennsylvania were clients of mine. Consequently, though we had not planned it, Chris Klicka and I had the “pleasure” of working together with Mike Farris on a number of cases here on behalf of HSLDA families, where school districts, through their superintendents, sought to criminally prosecute parents who were home schooling.

By the end of the 1980s, the climate changed due, in no small measure, to the perseverance and tenacity of Chris Klicka and HSLDA. Today, the acceptance of home schooling is well established nationwide. That is a tribute to the personal courage and legal acumen of that dark-haired constitutional student—Chris Klicka—who saw an injustice and sought, by the grace of God, to right it.

All this, I add, he accomplished while fighting an individual battle with Multiple Sclerosis. In these last years that disease sapped his physical strength and challenged his endurance. Nevertheless, his indomitable spirit, which was clearly Christ working through him, made him a warrior for freedom to the end. His gentle demeanor, disarming smile, and courageous heart were combined in a winsome way with his unyielding stance for scriptural principles. He died with the gratifying knowledge that parents across the land could instruct their children without fearing the heavy hand of state intervention. Now he rests peacefully in the bosom of the Lord he served so well.

Mr. Lloyd, who has lived in Guelph for four years, graduated with a teaching degree in 2006 and since then has worked short-term contract positions with public boards in Hamilton and Guelph.  He applied to the Wellington Catholic board in 2006 but did not hear back.

He contends that their policy is discriminatory.  “I need work,” he told the Guelph Mercury.  “But that’s not entirely it. It’s a higher conviction than that. I don’t think it’s right to have a publicly-funded institution where everyone is not welcome to work there.”

Lloyd is not optimistic about his case, but nevertheless thinks that it has value.  “I definitely think there’s some substance to it,” he said.  “I’m not convinced it will go through, but there’s definitely substance.  I hope somebody will look at this and say: ‘You’re right, this isn’t fair and it needs to be changed.’”

The board’s director of education, Donald Drone, insists, however, that the board has a legal right to focus their hiring on active Catholics, and that this is essential to the very purpose of the Catholic school.

Catholic school districts have a constitutional right to restrict hiring to Catholics, he said, particularly those who work in direct service with children.  “They need to be, should be, Catholic and therefore share the same values of the Church, because we’re founded on the teachings of Christ and salvation history.  Therefore from our standpoint, from a board policy standpoint, it’s very important that people who are working with us would be Roman Catholic.”

“The reason for our existence is to provide a Catholic education to students,” he explained, “and by axiom, from my standpoint, those who are delivering that program should be Catholic, and should be knowledgeable in the faith.  And I would say that that’s likely the same position that most Catholic boards in this province would have.”

Drone indicated that they do have non-Catholics working in the board, “but generally speaking, they’re not, for most cases, offering direct service by way of curriculum,” he said.  “They certainly make a contribution, and they also, from our perspective, add to the social fabric of our organization.”

He says respects the concern that some might have about the hiring policy, but, he said, “I also respect our right…to show preferential treatment for people who are in concert with our teaching and our culture.”

The board’s lawyer, Eric Roher, has issued a written response to the tribunal.  While he indicates that the complaint should be dismissed due to its lateness and because Lloyd was not qualified for the position despite the difference in religious belief, he focuses on the board’s right to be authentically Catholic.

Lloyd is currently preparing his response to the board’s submission, says the Guelph Mercury.

Phil Horgan of the Catholic Civil Rights League told LifeSiteNews.com, “Based on the initial reports, this issue flies in the face of the constitutional guarantees afforded Catholics dating back to Confederation and I am not aware of any court or tribunal which has challenged those provisions in respect of Catholic preferential hiring rights.”

Horgan pointed to the 1984 Caldwell v. Stuart case as precedent upholding the hiring rights of Catholic schools.  In that case, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal of a teacher who was not rehired at a Catholic school after having contravened Church teaching by ‘marrying’ a divorced man in a civil ceremony.

According to Horgan, however, despite the legal precedent, “it is somewhat unknown as to what some adjudicator from the human rights commission may decide.”