Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from a 2014 newsletter, which was based upon materials The Cardinal Newman Society provided to U.S. bishops at a November 2013 meeting.
In December 2013, The Cardinal Newman Society issued a statement expressing serious reservations about the rapid adoption of the Common Core State Standards in Catholic schools across the country:
The Cardinal Newman Society is concerned that adoption of the Common Core at this time is premature. Worse, it may be a mistake that will be difficult or impossible to undo for years to come.
We do not doubt the good intentions of those who advocate the Common Core in Catholic schools, and we acknowledge their confidence that Catholic schools can maintain a strong Catholic identity even while measuring their quality according to secular standards.
But we do not share this confidence, in light of the sad experience in recent decades of many Catholic colleges, hospitals, and charities that believed they could infuse Catholic identity into the secular standards that they embraced.
The Common Core standards — developed with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and promoted with federal grants from the Obama administration — were adopted rapidly by many states and have quickly become controversial, often in the political arena but also in Catholic circles. We responded to these radical changes in education by launching our Catholic Is Our Core initiative. We have also expanded our programs for K-12 Catholic education. Our added expert staff will promote and defend faithful Catholic education with regard to Catholic school standards, accreditation, teacher orientation, new school startup procedures while we continue our popular Catholic Education Honor Roll.
This has all moved so rapidly, and The Cardinal Newman Society continues to receive questions about the Common Core and Catholic education nearly every day. For your convenience, we have detailed 10 facts that every Catholic should know about the Common Core. In addition, our statement on the Common Core and many other helpful resources are available on our special Common Core website, CatholicIsOurCore.org. We welcome your contributions of additional information and insights that may be valuable to Catholic parents, educators, pastors, and bishops.
1. The Common Core is not mandatory for Catholic schools.
No government has required the Common Core in private schools, and Catholic educators are under no obligation to conform. It is up to each state whether to adopt the standards as their own, and those standards are mandatory only for government schools.
Nevertheless, for decades many Catholic schools have voluntarily conformed their curricula and teaching to secular state standards — now Common Core in most states.
The lack of distinct standards for authentic Catholic education has long been a concern, but it is getting more attention due to the national controversy over the Common Core.
2. The Common Core is not intended for Catholic education.
The Common Core’s stated purpose falls far short of the Holy See’s rich vision for Catholic education: “The standards … are designed to ensure students are prepared for today’s entry-level careers, freshman-level college courses, and workforce training programs.”
While educators and reformers are hotly debating whether the Common Core’s objectives are appropriate for government schools, clearly the objectives were not developed with Catholic education in mind. Catholic education is much greater than college and career preparation.
Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, former secretary to the Congregation for Catholic Education, explained in a 2005 lecture at The Catholic University of America:
The enduring foundation on which the Church builds her educational philosophy is the conviction that it is a process which forms the whole child, especially with his or her eyes fixed on the vision of God. The specific purpose of a Catholic education is the formation of boys and girls who will be good citizens of this world, enriching society with the leaven of the Gospel, but who will also be citizens of the world to come. Catholic schools have a straightforward goal: to foster the growth of good Catholic human beings who love God and neighbor and thus fulfill their destiny of becoming saints.
3. Catholic schools already outperform public schools.
The Common Core is a response to the failings of government schools. It can’t be assumed that the standards will improve Catholic schools, which for two decades have outperformed public schools on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests. In 2013, eighth-grade students at Catholic schools had an average score of 286 in reading (as compared to 226 at government schools) and 295 in math (284 at government schools).
Likewise, in 2011, students from “religious schools” far outperformed those at government schools on the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT). They scored 531 in reading (government schools 449), 533 in math (government schools 506) and 528 in writing (government schools 483).
Some have expressed concern that national tests are adjusting to conform to the Common Core. This is true of many common tests like the SAT and the California Achievement Test (CAT). Others, like the ACT college readiness test and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, will remain stable for at least several years. Regardless, students with a strong Catholic education should continue to perform well on Common Core-adjusted tests.
Meanwhile, Catholic educators can and should develop national tests that measure success according to authentic Catholic education standards. Testing companies will be eager to serve more than 2 million Catholic school students plus homeschoolers, and quality colleges will continue to be eager to recruit graduates with a traditional Catholic education.
4. Catholic schools already prepare students for college and career.
Even if the Common Core truly helps prepare students for college and career, Catholic education has no apparent need of such help. According to the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA), Catholic high schools already have a 99 percent graduation rate, as opposed to 73 percent in government schools. Most Catholic school graduates attend four-year colleges (85 percent), as opposed to fewer than half (44 percent) of government school graduates.
It is primarily two-year community colleges and government universities that have expressed enthusiasm for the Common Core standards, which aim for entry-level job skills. An authentic Catholic education prepares students for success in life as well as vocation, and the typical graduate is well-prepared for a college-level liberal arts education.
5. The Common Core is rushed, untested and experimental.
The Common Core was developed quietly by a few bureaucrats using Gates Foundation funds and then “sold” to the National Governor’s Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to avoid public scrutiny and accountability. It became popular to educators and then legislators as the Obama administration dangled a promise of federal grants, causing many states to adopt Common Core standards even before they were completed. Catholic educators and bishops were warned that “it is important to get on board” with the untested standards.
The Common Core standards have never been tested, and there is no evidence that they will achieve their objectives of college and career readiness. Indeed, although standards influence how educational success is measured, even the “best” state standards — as ranked by the respected Thomas B. Fordham Institute — have no discernible impact on student outcomes.
Instead, the Common Core’s English language and “new math” standards were developed by little-known “experts” with no solid research basis, despite misleading claims. For instance, the push for reading more “informational texts” — such as manuals and scientific articles — relies upon distortions of NAEP data. The 2006 federal Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) found that higher NAEP scores for literacy in fact correlate to more reading of novels and less frequent reading of information.
6. The Common Core is (ultimately) about textbooks and curriculum.
The Common Core’s proponents note that standards are not the same as curricula, textbooks or teaching, and so adopting the Common Core does not — in itself — control what happens in the classroom. But it’s disingenuous to ignore the huge impact that standards can have on students. Textbook publishers and testing companies are already conforming to the Common Core, and the standards do prompt changes in curricula and teaching.
The Gates Foundation has committed more than $10.5 million in grants to develop Common Core-compliant curricula. In May 2014, the Foundation also granted $10 million to the New Ventures Fund to help implement Common Core with “lesson plan content, webinars, online platforms for sharing instruction plans, and networking events.”
Textbook publishers look to make millions of dollars with new products that conform to the Common Core, and many such texts are already in Catholic schools. Not surprisingly, publishers are among the leading supporters of the Common Core.
7. The Common Core may hinder students’ education and formation.
Hardly the least concern, critics have noted several ways in which the Common Core could do real harm to education. The standards demand greater emphasis on reading informational texts, with a corresponding decrease in great literature. Some recommended (not required) texts are morally problematic. The “new math” techniques ignore traditional and successful math programs. Math standards are lowered: pre-algebra or algebra is no longer the eighth-grade norm, nor pre-calculus or calculus for 12th grade. Some of the expectations are simply not age-appropriate.
The emphasis on skills and career preparation ignores other aspects of student formation that are key to Catholic education. Proponents argue that the Common Core can be supplemented with Catholic instruction, so weak standards do no harm. But if the success of schools and students is measured by the Common Core standards, the natural inclination is to reduce attention to Catholic identity and student formation. It is the same path taken by now-secularized Catholic colleges.
8. The Common Core violates the principle of subsidiarity.
National standards tend to confine educators to a particular vision for education, which stifles innovation and threatens the independence and unique mission of Catholic schools. In April of 2014, the U.S. bishops’ office for Catholic education issued a statement acknowledging their concerns about the Common Core:
In the Church, the principle of subsidiarity directs that human events are best handled at the lowest possible level, closest to the individuals affected by the decisions being made. … This principle provides a great strength for Catholic schools as it gives the local diocesan and school community the ability to make decisions at the school level related to guidelines and curriculum. It also allows for adjustments and adaptations to be made by teachers and administrators for the children under their care.
Subsidiarity also applies to the parents’ role as first educators of their children, a fact taught clearly in the Holy See’s teaching on Catholic education. Parents have been largely absent from decisions regarding the Common Core. Our Catholic Is Our Core initiative seeks to bring parents into the conversation so their concerns are heard.
9. The Common Core may endanger religious freedom for Catholic educators.
State and federal involvement in Common Core could lead to religious liberty violations. Catholic schools’ protection from threats like the HHS mandate depends on showing consistent Catholic identity, because First Amendment protections often depend on demonstrating a bona fide religious character. The Common Core may diminish a school’s Catholic identity by “crowding out” important elements of authentic Catholic formation, emphasizing skills and practicality over vocation, and failing to teach reasoning from a foundation of truth.
10. Our “common core” is our Catholic faith.
Catholic education didn’t become successful by striving for secular standards; its success begins with its Catholic mission. Traditional classroom methods and pedagogy in Catholic schools developed precisely because of the desire to form students morally, spiritually, intellectually and socially. “Reforms” that are not rooted in the Catholic faith are unlikely to bear good fruit.
Many educators see the danger. In a Cardinal Newman Society survey of Catholic high school principals, only 26 percent told us they prefer to adopt the Common Core as it is, without significant changes to protect Catholic identity. Among principals of our Catholic High School Honor Roll schools, 32 percent would reject the Common Core entirely, while 40 percent want the Church to pause and take more time to study the standards.
Our purpose, then, for our Catholic Is Our Core initiative remains “to provide those concerned about faithful Catholic education with solid information, analysis and arguments to more fully understand the potential impact of the Common Core on Catholic education and to advise caution about the Common Core until it can be further studied and evaluated.” It is our hope that the Common Core proves to be the catalyst that leads to more helpful standards and reforms, resulting in even stronger Catholic education.
Catholic Schools Need Catholic Standards
/in Academics, Blog Commentary, K12 Curriculum Standards Latest/by Cardinal Newman Society StaffThe Cardinal Newman Society presents our new Catholic Curriculum Standards to help Catholic educators strengthen their core mission of evangelization and forming young people for God.
The Newman Society has long promoted and defended faithful Catholic education, and increasingly this work is turned toward helping schools study, embrace and implement the Church’s vision for Catholic education. Our new Standards are central to this work.
“We want to help, to propose a path forward that is more appropriate for Catholic schools than the problematic Common Core and other secular options,” says Dr. Dan Guernsey, director of K-12 education programs for The Cardinal Newman Society and co-author of the Catholic Curriculum Standards with deputy director Dr. Denise Donohue.
“The Standards point Catholic education in the right direction,” Dr. Donohue says. “We expect and in fact encourage more innovation, continued efforts to delve into the mission of Catholic schools and further develop authentic Catholic standards of education so that Catholic identity thrives.”
With emphasis on literature, science, history and math, the Catholic Curriculum Standards incorporate Catholic insights into these curricular areas and indicate what students should be learning beyond the accumulation of useful skills and knowledge. The standards are grouped into two grade levels, K-6 and 7-12, to help educators assign or develop materials and choose subject matter that serve the unique mission of Catholic education.
For too long, many Catholic schools have relied heavily on secular government standards like the Common Core to measure school success and on similarly focused standardized tests to measure student outcomes. These distract Catholic educators from their core mission, because they ignore key aspects of human formation and often depend on philosophies of education that are contrary to the Catholic faith. Still, Catholic schools have far outperformed public schools because of the genuine concern of their leaders and teachers for students’ personal formation.
Good intentions, sadly, are not enough.
Catholic education’s road to renewal will be paved with genuine Catholic standards, resting on the solid foundation of Catholic teaching and the Church’s vision for Catholic education.
What are standards? Consider the grand promises of the Common Core State Standards: “These learning goals outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade. The standards were created to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life, regardless of where they live.”
Standards indicate levels of student achievement. They help determine curriculum, testing, and measures of school success. When developed rightly, they are a wonderful tool for educators and have become fundamental to American schooling.
But if standards are fundamental to modern education, then it should be obvious that Catholic schools need Catholic standards. If we measure Catholic school success by standards that do not serve the authentic mission of Catholic education, we fail to attend to Catholic identity — and eventually, our schools simply fail.
But that doesn’t have to be the fate of Catholic education. It cannot be the fate of Catholic education, on which we rely for the reform of Catholic life and American society.
“Even amid growing challenges in today’s society, Catholic schools and homeschool programs that embrace and celebrate the mission of Catholic education continue to thrive across the United States,” write Drs. Donohue and Guernsey in their online letter introducing the Catholic Curriculum Standards. “The Cardinal Newman Society makes this free resource available to all educators, including parents, the primary educators of children, in hopes of continuing this renewal of Catholic education for the benefit of our children, our Church, and the common good they serve.”
Is There Such a Thing as Catholic Math?
/in Academics, Blog Commentary, K12 Curriculum Standards Latest, PR Register Column/by Patrick ReillyIs there a Catholic way of learning something?
Math? Science? History?
It’s an intriguing question. We wrestled with the question this past year at The Cardinal Newman Society, while developing proposed Catholic curriculum standards for Catholic education.
It’s easy to understand that Jesus is the Master Teacher. “Rabbi,” His disciples called Him. A Catholic teacher should emulate Christ and should lead young people to Him.
But saying there’s a Catholic approach to mathematics evokes a vision of Jesus writing in the sand at the Sea of Galilee, attempting to teach pre-calculus to a school of fishermen. Oh, if only Catholics did have a divinely simple method of advanced mathematics! It’s not, at least, in my translation of the Bible.
I’ve never heard a historian suggest that Catholics should learn only about their own experience while neglecting other important world events. Salvation history deserves priority in Catholic education. But within the particular academic discipline of history, studying the Nazi Holocaust is arguably as necessary as studying the Exodus.
I’ve also never heard a scientist suggest that the scientific method works better for Catholics, or that the Old Testament is a textbook for scientific knowledge.
So what’s “Catholic education,” then? Is it a secular education on which we sprinkle prayer, catechesis and Christian values?
The promise seems much larger. Certainly there’s not much point of Catholic standards for curricula in math, history, science and English language arts, if the “education” in Catholic schools is not uniquely Catholic.
The truth is, there is indeed something very special in Catholic education about how and what a student learns. That’s in every subject — not just religion. It doesn’t mean rejecting knowledge that is truthful and worthy of a secular education. But Catholic education has priorities that are uniquely suited to human development and to the needs of the soul, and so our expectations for student learning are always and substantially different … and better!
A Catholic education is evangelical; it is one of the Church’s chief means of teaching the faith and bringing people to Christ. We find God in all things, inside and outside religion class.
A Catholic education is formational; it strives not only to teach useful knowledge and skills, but to prepare the whole person — body, mind and soul — for service to man and God. We want our students to be saints.
A Catholic education is empowering; it teaches students the knowledge and ability to think critically about the world and about human culture, so that our graduates can go forth and help transform family, society, business, government and Church in accord with the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, we expect students to come away from mathematics with something more than a means of engineering and astronomy. By studying math, we want our students to:
These are just some of the student outcomes identified by my colleagues, Dr. Dan Guernsey and Dr. Denise Donohue, in developing Catholic curriculum standards. They had help from some of the best minds in the Church, like Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J., Anthony Esolen, Joseph Pearce and several others.
Such a project, of course, could go on forever and still bear much fruit. But the point is made: there is a uniquely Catholic approach to teaching math and other subjects, because God’s revelation opens up wonderful new ways of looking at the same data and methods. The world is so much more exciting and meaningful, given the gift of faith.
Therefore, science becomes more than the observations obtained by our five senses and “proved” (always uncertainly) by the weight of evidence. Paired with divine revelation, science becomes a means of better knowing God, by the analogy of His creation.
Graduates of Catholic education who study science should be able to, “Demonstrate confidence in human reason and in one’s ability to know the truth about God’s creation and the fundamental intelligibility of the world.” They should, “Relate how the human soul is specifically created by God for each human being, does not evolve from lesser matter, and is not inherited from our parents.”
And at the very least, they should be aware of the great Catholic contributions to science. They should know “Copernicus, Mendel, DaVinci, Bacon, Pasteur, Volta, St. Albert the Great, and others and the witness and evidence they supply against the false claim that Catholicism is not compatible with science.”
Upon learning history, a student from a Catholic school should know “the historical impact of the Catholic Church on human events” and “how Christian social ethics extend to questions of politics, economy, and social institutions and not just personal moral decision-making.”
And every student in Catholic education should have experienced great works of literature! By reading good literature, a student comes to a better understanding of “the proper nature of man, his problems, and his experiences in trying to know and perfect both himself and the world.”
There’s so much more to a Catholic education — indeed as much as completes the perfection of man, which of course is limitless. But unless Catholic families and educators seek answers to the question — What is unique and essential to Catholic education? — we will surely fail to prepare our young people according to the vision of the Church.
After considering all that should be present in Catholic education, the Catholic school or homeschool becomes more exciting and inviting than ever before. If the Church wants a renaissance in Catholic education, faithful Catholic standards are a great starting point.
This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.
Let’s Move Beyond the Common Core in Catholic Schools
/in Academics, Blog Commentary, Common Core Latest, PR Register Column/by Patrick ReillyBy now, it should be apparent that the Common Core State Standards for schools won’t come close to fulfilling the grand promises of its proponents.
Parents, scholars, unions and the media all seem to be painfully aware of the fact — but after the mad rush to implement the standards, create new tests and market new textbooks, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of momentum to change course.
At least, that’s true of the nation’s public schools. But our Catholic schools can and should do much better, with standards that truly reflect their Catholic mission. I get the sense that most Catholics are eager to move above and beyond, and many dioceses are already working on it.
Last December, the Associated Press reported a “backlash” against Common Core in Catholic schools. Families want what’s best for their kids, and so do Catholic school leaders. Now’s the time to unite behind something better.
A major new report on the Common Core might be just the catalyst that we need to finally break away. After the Fall: Catholic Education Beyond the Common Core is published by the reputable Pioneer Institute and the American Principles Project, whose founder Robert George of Princeton University joined more than 130 Catholic scholars in a letter criticizing the Common Core in 2013.
The new report presents a rather dismal picture of Catholic education under the Common Core, but its conclusion is hopeful, suggesting that Catholic schools may have a special opportunity amid the chaos to reassert their superiority. Urging the Church to embrace and celebrate faithful Catholic education, the authors claim, “Now is the time for Catholic schools to press their advantage.”
Nothing could be more welcome to beleaguered Catholics today, after the long slide in Catholic school enrollment and Catholic identity over recent decades. In today’s society, we greatly need strong Catholic schools.
Incompatible and unsuited
The authors of After the Fall know this well. Anthony Esolen is the insightful author and critic from Providence College whose expertise is literature — perhaps the worst casualty of the Common Core. Dan Guernsey is the visionary expert in Catholic education who is launching an outstanding teacher program at Ave Maria University and leads The Cardinal Newman Society’s K-12 education programs. Jane Robbins of the American Principles Project and Kevin Ryan of Boston University have made great contributions to education policy, especially in their criticism of the Common Core.
Together they have provided Catholics “a tremendous service,” according to two of America’s former ambassadors to the Vatican: Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon and former Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn. In their preface to the report, Flynn and Glendon declare the Common Core standards “incompatible with and unsuited for a traditional Catholic education.”
The specific arguments are provided by the authors of After the Fall. They delve into three “insufficiencies” of the Common Core: its “misunderstanding of the nature of character formation due to a corrupting workforce-development view,” its “misunderstanding of the nature of literature due to a lack of understanding about man, creativity, and God,” and its “misunderstanding of the liberal arts due to a lack of understanding about the relationship of man and God to each other and to everything else.”
They could have simply written that the Common Core ignores what is most important to Catholics about God and man. But that’s the point that critics have been saying all along. What makes After the Fall such an important document is that it carefully examines and debunks arguments for the Common Core and then explains the case for faithfully Catholic standards of education, all in great detail. It should convince the most devoted fan of the Common Core.
The intended audience is clearly Catholic school leaders and scholars, but any Catholic will benefit from its outstanding defense of authentic Catholic education.
Toward better standards
After the Fall validates many of the concerns of Common Core critics, but it shouldn’t be used simply for an “I told you so” moment. Instead, as the authors strongly encourage, now is the time to more deeply examine the purpose of Catholic education and embrace educational standards that appropriately drive the curriculum and fulfill the mission of Catholic schools. The prospect is very exciting.
“A benefit of the Common Core to Catholic schools,” according to authors of After the Fall, “is that it has drawn attention to the need for Catholic educators to better articulate exactly what the unique standards and elements of Catholic education might be.”
Next week, The Cardinal Newman Society will be releasing Catholic curriculum standards to help move this process forward. Dioceses and other organizations have made important contributions as well.
After the Fall is what the Education Department of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recommended three years ago, when it warned, “The CCSS [Common Core] should be neither adopted nor rejected without review, study, consultation, discussion and caution.” The office also advised:
Well-intentioned Catholic educators have tried to contort Common Core to fit within Catholic schools. But as the After the Fall authors suggest, such efforts ultimately will not be successful, because the design and purpose of the standards makes them impossible.
Focusing standards on the mission of Catholic schools, however, is eminently possible — and necessary. It’s a great time to get it done.
This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.
Common Core ‘Never Needed’ in Catholic Schools, Says Study’s Lead Author
/in Academics, Blog Commentary, Common Core Latest/by Cardinal Newman Society StaffIs the great debate over the use of Common Core State Standards in Catholic schools finally resolved? It should be, especially with this week’s publication of After the Fall: Catholic Education Beyond the Common Core, the first thorough academic critique of the standards and their impact on Catholic education.
Dr. Dan Guernsey, director of K-12 programs for The Cardinal Newman Society, was the lead author of the report, joined by education experts Dr. Anthony Esolen of Providence College, Jane Robbins of American Principles Project and Dr. Kevin Ryan of Boston University. The study was jointly sponsored by the Boston-based research group Pioneer Institute and the public policy organization American Principles Project.
Since the release of the Common Core in 2010, Catholic families, educators and even some bishops have expressed concern about use of the standards in Catholic schools. The Cardinal Newman Society strongly cautioned school leaders against rushing to adopt the Common Core and launched the Catholic Is Our Core initiative to inform families and educators about the standards’ failings. The essential concern is that the Common Core’s one-size-fits-all secular approach to education and its emphasis on preparing students for college and workforce training are incompatible with the much higher goals and mission of Catholic schools.
In After the Fall, Dr. Guernsey and his fellow scholars confirm the warnings of the Newman Society and many other critics of the Common Core.
In about 50 pages of analysis, the authors debunk key arguments that Catholic school leaders have made when adopting the Common Core in Catholic schools. The report explains how the philosophy behind Common Core simply cannot be reconciled with the mission of Catholic education.
I spoke recently with Dr. Guernsey about the findings in After the Fall and his thoughts about the Common Core’s impact on Catholic education:
What was the conventional wisdom at the time the Common Core was first adopted in Catholic schools, in terms of it being a good idea?
Dr. Guernsey: Conventional wisdom at first seemed to be: Common Core was just business as usual for Catholic schools, seeking to adapt to the latest state standards that had come their way — only this time the scale was national.
Previously, some dioceses had followed their individual state standards closely, in some cases not so closely, and many Catholic educators and parents did not overly concern themselves with their state’s standards. It seemed prudent to some professional educators to get out ahead of the new standards and do them better than the public schools, and thus ensure our competitive advantage.
The problem was that the standards obfuscated our real competitive advantage as Catholic schools: we educate the whole person and have access to full and transcendent views of man, his purpose and his ultimate good.
Also, the early conventional wisdom of some professional educators failed to predict the tremendous negative backlash that accompanied the Common Core and the concerns of parents who were seeking an elite education — that their expensive private school was now just “common” like the public schools they fled.
Overall, and compared to public schools, in what position were Catholic schools academically before Common Core?
Dr. Guernsey: The Common Core was purportedly designed to meet the perceived academic crisis in public schools. But no such crisis existed in Catholic schools.
Catholic schools have been outperforming public schools by double-digit margins for the last 20 years on federal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading and math tests (often referred to as “the nation’s report card”). Catholic-school college preparation is outstanding, with over 99 percent of students graduating from high school and 84 percent going on to four-year colleges (almost double the public-school rate). Once they get to college, Catholic-school graduates are twice as likely as those from public schools to graduate from college within eight years of high-school graduation (62 percent vs. 31 percent).
These statistics suggest that in adopting the Common Core, Catholic schools were attempting to fix what was not broken. Why Catholic schools should plunge into an untested “solution” for a nonexistent problem has never been satisfactorily explained.
And what effect has Common Core had on Catholic school academics where it’s been implemented?
Dr. Guernsey: There is no specific published data on how Catholic schools’ standardized test scores per se have done post-Common Core. We do know that for all schools, five years into the Common Core experiment, the data is at best mixed. NAEP scores are dropping and below expectations, although causation is not yet clear.
But what we are not hearing is wide-scale applause and admiration for the Common Core. It has not delivered. Public school teacher support for the Common Core has dropped from 76 percent to 40 percent. So the bloom is off the rose.
So Common Core hasn’t led to test scores going through the roof and kids being more prepared for college?
Dr. Guernsey: There is no evidence that the Common Core has led to increased test scores. There is data to suggest that five years into the Common Core, professors report that students are less prepared for college.
Again, it is hard to prove strict causation, but according to the 2016 ACT National Curriculum Survey, while in 2009 and 2012, 26 percent of college instructors reported that their incoming students were well prepared for college-level work, by 2016 that the percentage had dropped to 16 percent. ACT also found that of those college instructors who reported a degree of familiarity with the Common Core, a full 60 percent reported that the Common Core expectations were not “completely” or “a great deal” aligned to what the professors expect of their college student.
What about Catholic educators? How has the adoption of Common Core in Catholic schools impacted their ability to teach and form students?
Dr. Guernsey: Those in the know have always been free to work around the standards as they see fit. Since the standards set minimums, Catholic educators can and should do more. A danger is that those not fully aware of the weaknesses in the standards or those not fully immersed in the Catholic intellectual tradition, might not know what they do not know.
In an effort to help address this potential need, The Cardinal Newman Society has been publishing several helpful resources available on our website. The most recent, being released this month, is a set of Catholic Curriculum Standards which seek to outline specific elements of the Catholic intellectual tradition which schools should include in their efforts to teach math, history, science and literature.
In terms of the mission of Catholic schools and overall student formation, what effect has Common Core had on Catholic schools?
Dr. Guernsey: It’s hard to say what has happened, but my sense is that Catholic educators as a whole are more attuned to figuring out what the specific mission of Catholic education is. The grief many Catholic schools who implemented the Common Core experienced caused them to dig deeper to justify to their customer base why they are different from public schools. This is a great development.
Here, again, The Cardinal Newman Society has developed crucial resources including our forthcoming Principles of Catholic Identity in Education which outlines the Church’s expectations for her schools.
Is it safe to say Common Core was never needed in Catholic schools and should have never been implemented?
Dr. Guernsey: It is safe to say they were never needed. If mission drives standards, then to the degree the Catholic schools’ educational mission is similar to public schools’ (e.g., in teaching basic math skills to second-graders), there can be some sharing of standards, if there is proof of their effectiveness. However, there is no proof the Common Core standards are an improvement over other standards.
Surprisingly, there is little data to suggest that better standards even result in higher test scores. Education is much more complex than that. But even if some still want to try to maintain that the Common Core standards are effective, they are just one set of possible standards among hundreds that are out there, many of which have stronger track records.
That being said, we also have to remember that to the degree that elements of the Catholic mission are broader than the public schools’, different or additional standards are required.
So what should Catholic schools do now?
Dr. Guernsey: As we wrote in the conclusiong of After the Fall:
Catholic Schools Should Leave Common Core Behind
/in Academics, Blog Commentary, Common Core Latest, Statements and Press Releases/by Cardinal Newman Society StaffNearly three years ago, The Cardinal Newman Society urged Catholic school leaders to exercise caution and refrain from rushing into adoption of the Common Core State Standards. In meetings with bishops and diocesan superintendents, we and other education advocates raised important concerns:
Today our concerns are validated and confirmed by a new, thorough and scholarly critique of the Common Core’s use in Catholic schools. After the Fall: Catholic Education Beyond the Common Core is published by the Pioneer Institute in collaboration with American Principles Project and authored by Dr. Dan Guernsey, director of K-12 education programs for The Cardinal Newman Society, along with the impressive Dr. Anthony Esolen, Jane Robbins and Dr. Kevin Ryan.
After the Fall should finally and forever convince Catholic school leaders to move above and beyond the flawed Common Core standards by embracing truly Catholic standards of excellence in education.
For Catholic schools to thrive and fulfill their mission of forming the whole person — mind, body and soul — they must make the Catholic faith the core of all that they do. Sprinkling Catholicism on top of secular Common Core standards, as After the Fall describes the approach recommended by some Catholic educators, in fact weakens Catholic identity and denies students the formation that is essential to a truly Catholic education.
The fact of the matter is faithful Catholic schools already outperform secular schools and help prepare students not only for college and career, but more importantly for this life and the next. They do well because of their emphasis on Christian formation, which is absent from the Common Core and other government standards.
Because Common Core gets man wrong, it gets education wrong. Catholic insight into human nature and into man’s relationships with his fellow man, nature, and God allows for a more complete exploration of the world and not just all that is in it, but also that which transcends it as well. We are about a more substantial project and need more substantial standards. The Cardinal Newman society will soon be releasing resources to aid the discussion of what those standards might include.
Before the publication of this new scholarly analysis, there was already considerable momentum in Catholic education away from dependence on the Common Core and toward a more faith-centered approach to Catholic education. With After the Fall’s devastating critique proving accurate Catholic concerns about the Common Core, we hope this trend will continue.
It’s time for all Catholic schools to turn the page. Catholic is the core of Catholic education.
For more information about the Common Core click here.
10 Facts Every Catholic Should Know About the Common Core
/in Academics Common Core, Research and Analysis/by Cardinal Newman Society StaffEditor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from a 2014 newsletter, which was based upon materials The Cardinal Newman Society provided to U.S. bishops at a November 2013 meeting.
In December 2013, The Cardinal Newman Society issued a statement expressing serious reservations about the rapid adoption of the Common Core State Standards in Catholic schools across the country:
The Common Core standards — developed with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and promoted with federal grants from the Obama administration — were adopted rapidly by many states and have quickly become controversial, often in the political arena but also in Catholic circles. We responded to these radical changes in education by launching our Catholic Is Our Core initiative. We have also expanded our programs for K-12 Catholic education. Our added expert staff will promote and defend faithful Catholic education with regard to Catholic school standards, accreditation, teacher orientation, new school startup procedures while we continue our popular Catholic Education Honor Roll.
This has all moved so rapidly, and The Cardinal Newman Society continues to receive questions about the Common Core and Catholic education nearly every day. For your convenience, we have detailed 10 facts that every Catholic should know about the Common Core. In addition, our statement on the Common Core and many other helpful resources are available on our special Common Core website, CatholicIsOurCore.org. We welcome your contributions of additional information and insights that may be valuable to Catholic parents, educators, pastors, and bishops.
1. The Common Core is not mandatory for Catholic schools.
No government has required the Common Core in private schools, and Catholic educators are under no obligation to conform. It is up to each state whether to adopt the standards as their own, and those standards are mandatory only for government schools.
Nevertheless, for decades many Catholic schools have voluntarily conformed their curricula and teaching to secular state standards — now Common Core in most states.
The lack of distinct standards for authentic Catholic education has long been a concern, but it is getting more attention due to the national controversy over the Common Core.
2. The Common Core is not intended for Catholic education.
The Common Core’s stated purpose falls far short of the Holy See’s rich vision for Catholic education: “The standards … are designed to ensure students are prepared for today’s entry-level careers, freshman-level college courses, and workforce training programs.”
While educators and reformers are hotly debating whether the Common Core’s objectives are appropriate for government schools, clearly the objectives were not developed with Catholic education in mind. Catholic education is much greater than college and career preparation.
Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, former secretary to the Congregation for Catholic Education, explained in a 2005 lecture at The Catholic University of America:
3. Catholic schools already outperform public schools.
The Common Core is a response to the failings of government schools. It can’t be assumed that the standards will improve Catholic schools, which for two decades have outperformed public schools on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests. In 2013, eighth-grade students at Catholic schools had an average score of 286 in reading (as compared to 226 at government schools) and 295 in math (284 at government schools).
Likewise, in 2011, students from “religious schools” far outperformed those at government schools on the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT). They scored 531 in reading (government schools 449), 533 in math (government schools 506) and 528 in writing (government schools 483).
Some have expressed concern that national tests are adjusting to conform to the Common Core. This is true of many common tests like the SAT and the California Achievement Test (CAT). Others, like the ACT college readiness test and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, will remain stable for at least several years. Regardless, students with a strong Catholic education should continue to perform well on Common Core-adjusted tests.
Meanwhile, Catholic educators can and should develop national tests that measure success according to authentic Catholic education standards. Testing companies will be eager to serve more than 2 million Catholic school students plus homeschoolers, and quality colleges will continue to be eager to recruit graduates with a traditional Catholic education.
4. Catholic schools already prepare students for college and career.
Even if the Common Core truly helps prepare students for college and career, Catholic education has no apparent need of such help. According to the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA), Catholic high schools already have a 99 percent graduation rate, as opposed to 73 percent in government schools. Most Catholic school graduates attend four-year colleges (85 percent), as opposed to fewer than half (44 percent) of government school graduates.
It is primarily two-year community colleges and government universities that have expressed enthusiasm for the Common Core standards, which aim for entry-level job skills. An authentic Catholic education prepares students for success in life as well as vocation, and the typical graduate is well-prepared for a college-level liberal arts education.
5. The Common Core is rushed, untested and experimental.
The Common Core was developed quietly by a few bureaucrats using Gates Foundation funds and then “sold” to the National Governor’s Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to avoid public scrutiny and accountability. It became popular to educators and then legislators as the Obama administration dangled a promise of federal grants, causing many states to adopt Common Core standards even before they were completed. Catholic educators and bishops were warned that “it is important to get on board” with the untested standards.
The Common Core standards have never been tested, and there is no evidence that they will achieve their objectives of college and career readiness. Indeed, although standards influence how educational success is measured, even the “best” state standards — as ranked by the respected Thomas B. Fordham Institute — have no discernible impact on student outcomes.
Instead, the Common Core’s English language and “new math” standards were developed by little-known “experts” with no solid research basis, despite misleading claims. For instance, the push for reading more “informational texts” — such as manuals and scientific articles — relies upon distortions of NAEP data. The 2006 federal Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) found that higher NAEP scores for literacy in fact correlate to more reading of novels and less frequent reading of information.
6. The Common Core is (ultimately) about textbooks and curriculum.
The Common Core’s proponents note that standards are not the same as curricula, textbooks or teaching, and so adopting the Common Core does not — in itself — control what happens in the classroom. But it’s disingenuous to ignore the huge impact that standards can have on students. Textbook publishers and testing companies are already conforming to the Common Core, and the standards do prompt changes in curricula and teaching.
The Gates Foundation has committed more than $10.5 million in grants to develop Common Core-compliant curricula. In May 2014, the Foundation also granted $10 million to the New Ventures Fund to help implement Common Core with “lesson plan content, webinars, online platforms for sharing instruction plans, and networking events.”
Textbook publishers look to make millions of dollars with new products that conform to the Common Core, and many such texts are already in Catholic schools. Not surprisingly, publishers are among the leading supporters of the Common Core.
7. The Common Core may hinder students’ education and formation.
Hardly the least concern, critics have noted several ways in which the Common Core could do real harm to education. The standards demand greater emphasis on reading informational texts, with a corresponding decrease in great literature. Some recommended (not required) texts are morally problematic. The “new math” techniques ignore traditional and successful math programs. Math standards are lowered: pre-algebra or algebra is no longer the eighth-grade norm, nor pre-calculus or calculus for 12th grade. Some of the expectations are simply not age-appropriate.
The emphasis on skills and career preparation ignores other aspects of student formation that are key to Catholic education. Proponents argue that the Common Core can be supplemented with Catholic instruction, so weak standards do no harm. But if the success of schools and students is measured by the Common Core standards, the natural inclination is to reduce attention to Catholic identity and student formation. It is the same path taken by now-secularized Catholic colleges.
8. The Common Core violates the principle of subsidiarity.
National standards tend to confine educators to a particular vision for education, which stifles innovation and threatens the independence and unique mission of Catholic schools. In April of 2014, the U.S. bishops’ office for Catholic education issued a statement acknowledging their concerns about the Common Core:
Subsidiarity also applies to the parents’ role as first educators of their children, a fact taught clearly in the Holy See’s teaching on Catholic education. Parents have been largely absent from decisions regarding the Common Core. Our Catholic Is Our Core initiative seeks to bring parents into the conversation so their concerns are heard.
9. The Common Core may endanger religious freedom for Catholic educators.
State and federal involvement in Common Core could lead to religious liberty violations. Catholic schools’ protection from threats like the HHS mandate depends on showing consistent Catholic identity, because First Amendment protections often depend on demonstrating a bona fide religious character. The Common Core may diminish a school’s Catholic identity by “crowding out” important elements of authentic Catholic formation, emphasizing skills and practicality over vocation, and failing to teach reasoning from a foundation of truth.
10. Our “common core” is our Catholic faith.
Catholic education didn’t become successful by striving for secular standards; its success begins with its Catholic mission. Traditional classroom methods and pedagogy in Catholic schools developed precisely because of the desire to form students morally, spiritually, intellectually and socially. “Reforms” that are not rooted in the Catholic faith are unlikely to bear good fruit.
Many educators see the danger. In a Cardinal Newman Society survey of Catholic high school principals, only 26 percent told us they prefer to adopt the Common Core as it is, without significant changes to protect Catholic identity. Among principals of our Catholic High School Honor Roll schools, 32 percent would reject the Common Core entirely, while 40 percent want the Church to pause and take more time to study the standards.
Our purpose, then, for our Catholic Is Our Core initiative remains “to provide those concerned about faithful Catholic education with solid information, analysis and arguments to more fully understand the potential impact of the Common Core on Catholic education and to advise caution about the Common Core until it can be further studied and evaluated.” It is our hope that the Common Core proves to be the catalyst that leads to more helpful standards and reforms, resulting in even stronger Catholic education.
Humanae Vitae Dissenters Should Not Be Teaching at Catholic Colleges
/in Blog, Mission and Governance Commentary, Hiring for Mission Latest, PR Register Column/by Patrick ReillyConsidering the morally corrupt and hypersexualized state of our culture, it’s not that surprising that dissenters from Blessed Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae would think now is a good time to revive their tired, old, anti-Catholic push to reverse the beautiful teachings of the Church regarding human sexuality — specifically, the use of contraceptives.
What should be surprising is that the leaders of this new campaign of public dissent against Church teaching are still allowed to teach theology, ethics, philosophy, religious studies, etc. at Catholic colleges across the country.
More than two dozen professors associated with Catholic colleges are involved in the new campaign to dismantle Humanae Vitae, organized by the dissident Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research. Their report arguing that contraceptives are “morally legitimate and even morally obligatory” has the backing of the United Nations and was presented at the U.N. in New York on Tuesday.
The report of the Wijngaards Institute, “On the Ethics of Using Contraceptives,” features some of the old names of the anti-Humanae Vitae movement still clinging to their dissent, and, unfortunately, still shaping young minds. Professors from Georgetown University, Fordham University, San Diego University, Duquesne University, Fairfield University, Loyola University in Chicago, Loyola University in New Orleans, and several other Catholic colleges appear among the current list of about 150 signatures.
Theologian Father Charles Curran is probably the most well-known signatory. He was one of the most notorious dissidents in Catholic higher education before the Vatican ousted him from The Catholic University of America (CUA) in 1986. These days he’s found at Southern Methodist University.
The ousting of Fr. Curran helped spark a revival of Catholic identity at CUA that continues today. In fact, on the same day the Wijngaards Institute report was released at the UN, CUA hosted an event on campus announcing the release of competing statement affirming the truths of the Church’s teaching on contraception in Humanae Vitae: “Affirmation of the Catholic Church’s Teaching on the Gift of Sexuality.”
This statement, composed by faithful Catholic theologians and supported by more than 500 Catholic intellectuals, outlines how contraception “is not in accord with God’s plan for sexuality and marriage.” This is what the Catholic faith teaches, and this is what we should expect is being taught to students by theology professors at Catholic colleges.
Why is it that on issues of sexuality and gender, dissent from Church teaching is still accepted and even encouraged at Catholic colleges? Would those who deny the divinity of Jesus or the Trinitarian nature of God be acceptable as Catholic theology professors? One shudders to think if the answer is “yes.”
This scandalous situation, in which far too many Catholic colleges have put themselves, directly endangers the souls of students. For any Catholic college that seeks to follow its religious mission, it makes no sense for an employer (the college) to hire and retain employees publicly opposed to the college’s mission.
These dissident Catholic theologians supporting the Wijngaards Institute report are undermining the colleges that employ them and the entire Church in the process. Their scandalous behavior echoes beyond the walls of the classroom and should concern every faithful Catholic.
It will be interesting and telling to see if any of the Catholic colleges whose professors have signed in support of the Wijngaards Institute report decide to part ways with the offenders — or take any action at all. Looking at the list of colleges, it doesn’t seem likely. But Catholic families should expect better and deserve better from these institutions, as long as they continue to claim a Catholic identity.
This article was originally published by National Catholic Register.
School Choice Must Support and Protect Catholic Education
/in Blog Latest, PR Register Column/by Patrick ReillySchool choice, an important issue for Catholic families and a priority for the Church, may soon become a key issue in the presidential race.
Donald Trump has said that school choice will be a centerpiece of his platform, and his campaign this week hired Rob Goad, an advisor to Illinois Congressman Luke Messer, to develop education policy. Hillary Clinton can be expected to oppose whatever he comes up with. Although she strongly supported public charter schools in the 1990s, she appears to be backing away from that, adhering more closely to the positions of the two major teacher unions that have endorsed her.
Meanwhile, Catholic families are in the breach. Despite impassioned efforts for more than half a century to secure Catholics’ fair share of education spending, and despite strong public support, school choice programs are scattered across several states and provide insufficient help to middle-class families.
Moreover, in an age when Catholic trust of government officials has been bruised and beaten by increasing violations of religious freedom, many Catholics are rightfully nervous about school choice. Can Catholic schools ever take public aid without risking attacks on their Catholic identity?
It’s an extremely important question. Trump has touted school choice as a means of lifting up the children of low-income and minority families, but he hasn’t devoted nearly enough attention to the assault on religious freedom. And if by “school choice” he means funding public charter schools just as his opponent did, that does nothing to help families choose Catholic education and throws more money at a failing government system.
Catholics need to stand unified behind certain principles and demand that politicians and legislators support them. They include:
But most importantly, Catholics need to stand unified in demanding faithful Catholic education from our schools, opposing any compromise of the faith for the sake of public funding or secular prestige.
The right to school choice is a clear and consistent Catholic teaching. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “Parents have the right to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own personal convictions. This right is fundamental” (2229).
The Second Vatican Council taught: “The public power, which has the obligation to protect and defend the rights of citizens, must see to it, in its concern for distributive justice, that public subsidies are paid out in such a way that parents are truly free to choose according to their conscience the schools they want for their children” (Gravissimum Educationis, 6).
And in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI told educators at The Catholic University of America that “everything possible must be done, in cooperation with the wider community, to ensure that [Catholic schools] are accessible to people of all social and economic strata. No child should be denied his or her right to an education in faith, which in turn nurtures the soul of a nation.”
Vouchers are the most direct means of school choice. The principle remains sound: any public funding for education should follow the child to the school of choice—Catholic or otherwise—and should not be defined as institutional aid that is subject to “strings” affecting schools. Some form of voucher is available in more than a dozen states, including Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Nevertheless, Catholics are understandably shaken by the Obama administration’s outrageous efforts to compromise our faith and values through healthcare regulations (in the HHS mandate) and education funding (by distorting Title IX regulations to demand compliance with the radical gender ideology). California recently sought to severely punish those few remaining Catholic colleges that uphold Catholic teaching on gender and marriage. For the most part, it’s student aid—not direct institutional aid—that puts Catholic schools and colleges under the thumb of secularist politicians.
So there’s due concern about government intrusion, but other forms of school choice may be safer. For instance, Oklahoma’s Education Savings Accounts are fully parent-controlled and never require a government check to be sent to a school. Many states have individual tax deductions or credits to help pay educational expenses. Some of these are refundable; in South Carolina, for example, low-income families can receive up to $10,000 per student in tax credits, including a rebate for the portion that is larger than what families owe in income taxes. Sixteen states allow tax credits for donations to private scholarship funds, which then help students attend schools of their choice.
Homeschooling, which is growing rapidly in the United States, is another form of school choice. Parents have the option, usually with minimal state regulation, to provide a faithful Catholic education at home using the curriculum of their choice (or making).
On the other hand, some forms of “school choice” are a direct threat to Catholic education. AnAmerica magazine writer recently urged dioceses to turn over Catholic schools to public school bureaucrats, making them public charter schools. That’s not saving Catholic education; that’s abandoning it. And as noted above, plans to pour money into expanding public school choices only strengthen the public school monopoly on education funding and discriminate against religious schools.
Catholics should demand school choice, because it’s our right—but we must never lose sight of our own responsibility to provide our children a Catholic education at any cost, without compromise. Whatever the circumstances in which we live, it’s necessary that we ensure the formation of mind, body, and spirit that prepares the young to serve God in this world and the next. Religious freedom is our right, and faithful Catholic education is our obligation. May God grant us both.
This article was originally published by The National Catholic Register.
Meeting Point Sex Ed Program Not Ready for Catholic Schools
/in Blog Research and Analysis, Sexuality and Gender/by Cardinal Newman Society StaffThe Meeting Point: Course of Affective Sexual Education for Young People (http://www.educazioneaffettiva.org/) is a high school-level sex education program developed by “a group of married couples in Spain,” supported by the Spanish Bishops’ Conference and released online by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family in July 2016. It is intended for use in Catholic high schools, parishes and homes.
Although The Cardinal Newman Society does not formally review educational materials, we have taken a close look at this program because of its high profile, parent concerns about its suitability for Catholic families, and our mission to promote and protect faithful Catholic education.
We find that The Meeting Point makes frequent use of sexually explicit and morally objectionable images, fails to clearly identify and explain Catholic doctrine from elemental sources including the Ten Commandments and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and compromises the innocence and integrity of young people under the rightful care of their parents.
With admiration for the work of the Pontifical Council for the Family and confidence in the Church’s authority on faith and morals, we find that The Meeting Point in its present form represents a significant break from the traditional approach to Catholic instruction and learning about human sexuality.
Moreover, we note that no Vatican official has directed implementation of this program in Catholic homes, parishes or schools. Neither have the United States bishops proposed adoption of the program. It has only been presented online as a resource—and not even a final program but “an opportunity to convene a large community of people to collaborate, to work, to exchange experiences and knowledge in this special field of education.” It is hoped, then, that the program may be edited and substantially refined in response to the feedback that has been requested by the Pontifical Council.
For these reasons, and to protect the purity of young men and women and the integrity of faithful Catholic education in school and at home, The Cardinal Newman Society believes that—at the very least—substantial improvement of the program is required under the guidance of Catholic parents and experts in theology, catechesis, pedagogy and developmental psychology. Catholic parents and educators should not assume that this program in its current form is suitable for a faithful Catholic education simply because of its association with the Pontifical Council for the Family. Parents especially have the right and responsibility to ensure that their children are presented teaching that is both sound and appropriate.
Lack of Moral Foundations
Since its release, the program’s critics have noted that in its hundreds of pages of materials, little emphasis is placed on the Sixth and Ninth Commandments or on the sexual sins that pervade our culture—and how young people should respond to these threats. The program also is light on references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, other Magisterial teachings and Sacred Scripture, especially with regard to moral law.
Instead, the “affective” program asks leading questions with minimal guidance, except what may be provided by the teacher or parent who leads the discussion. Without clear reference to the Church’s moral teachings, there is the danger that the student could succumb to relativism and false values.
For example, the Unit 2 lesson “Sex or Sexuality?” includes a group discussion (dividing girls and boys “if possible”) on what the words “sex” and “sexuality” suggest—casually noting that “boys can talk about hooking up, one-night stands, maybe making reference to their genital organs, etc., while the girls can talk more about maternity, pregnancy, falling in love…” The lesson makes no reference to the Church’s moral teaching, and the concepts of sin and chastity are not addressed until later in the program.
Contrast this with the warnings of the same Pontifical Council for the Family two decades ago in its 1995 document The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality: Guidelines for Education within the Family:
While The Meeting Point does point to chastity and virtue, and therefore could not be described quite so harshly as “values clarification,” its affective approach and use of sexually explicit materials often leaves the student uncertain about moral expectations. The moral authority of the Church is too often hidden from view in The Meeting Point program, in part because it lacks clear and frequent references to the Church’s teaching.
The program also presses students into uncomfortable, inappropriate conversations about sex, which the Pontifical Council strongly opposed in The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality: “No one should ever be invited, let alone obliged, to act in any way that could objectively offend against modesty or which could subjectively offend against his or her own delicacy or sense of privacy (Sec. 127).”
This concern for modesty is repeated by Pope Francis in his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia:
Morally Offensive Images
In order to spark frank discussion about sexuality among high school students, The Meeting Point incorporates sexually explicit images and discussions that are inappropriate, especially for Catholic schools.
The same “Sex or Sexuality?” lesson mentioned above, for example, has students evaluate a photograph that includes a bare-chested woman in an intimate embrace with a man. The stated “objective” is for students to feel “provoked” or even confused by the image. Several other sexually suggestive images are used in the same lesson.
The Unit 5 lesson titled “A Suitable Helper: Morality” contains three morally offensive advertisements that are to be viewed and discussed by students. One indicates a man’s attraction to pornography and adultery with the caption, “Part good. Part bad. That’s man’s essence.” An electronics ad features a partially naked man and woman in bed with the caption, “The second best thing to do in the dark.” The teacher’s notes acknowledge that “all three have a clearly erotic component.”
In the section on “Different Bodies,” teachers are instructed to have the students observe two photographs: “one of a newborn and the other of Antonio Lopez’s sculptures of a male and female body… to lead the youth to recognize sexual difference.” It is suggested that a biology teacher be present for this activity to help “review the identification of primary and secondary sex characteristics, observing the difference between male and female.” The students are then given a worksheet with a picture of the sculptures, followed by the question: “Can you identify the differences between them in a scientific way?”
It is natural and appropriate that older students should learn male and female anatomy at some point, but several images in The Meeting Point are obviously designed for sexual arousal or moral degradation. The authors may hope that students exercise perfect maturity and chastity in responding to the images, but that is an unrealistic expectation for most teenage boys and girls. American children are already bombarded with graphic sexual content; a Catholic educational program does not need to show them more.
Just two decades ago, these and other “abuses” in sex education were opposed by the Pontifical Council for the Family. The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality warned against schooling “whenever sex education is given to children by teaching them all the intimate details of genital relationships, even in a graphic way” (Sec. 139). It expected educators to be “positive and prudent” and “clear and delicate” in their presentation of “sexual information”:
The Sacred Congregation of Catholic Education, in its 1983 document Educational Guidance in Human Love: Outlines for Sex Education, advised great care in developing teaching materials for sex education, especially the choice of images. It recommended consultation with experts who can help ensure that teaching materials are psychologically, developmentally and morally appropriate.
It’s highly doubtful that The Meeting Point satisfies the Congregation’s expectations:
Parents as Primary Educators
In his introduction to the program, Monsignor Carlos Simon Vazquez, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family, explains that The Meeting Point is not intended only for Catholic schools, but also for parish programs, Catholic associations and parents at home. Looking back on discussions about The Meeting Point at last year’s World Meeting of Families, Msgr. Simon attests that “we clearly saw the family’s primacy in the education of the children, and that emotional and sexual education is not something that exclusively or mainly pertains to the competence of institutions that are as necessary as schools are.”
Nevertheless, the adoption of any sex education program by schools or parish programs—unless with the direct and substantial involvement of parents—conflicts with the parents’ role as primary educators of their children, especially in matters of sexuality. Pope John Paul II, in his 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, put sex education squarely under parents’ direction:
Moreover, as the primary educators of their children, parents should not “tolerate immoral or inadequate formation being given to their children outside the home” (The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, Sec. 44).
Clarification is needed on these points to ensure that schools and Church programs do not simply implement The Meeting Point under the impression that it is an “official” Catholic education program prescribed by the Vatican.
Not a Helpful Resource
There are other concerns about The Meeting Point program, such as the discussion of abortion in the Unit 5 lesson titled “I Am a Child; Right, Gift or Problem?” It makes no reference to abortion as a mortal sin; rather, unwanted pregnancies are discussed as a “problem” in society.
The lesson contains a troubling scenario to be read and discussed among students and teacher. In “the true story of a woman who was led by her circumstances and society to ‘eliminate her problem,’” an explicit description is rendered of a girl’s abortion experience that can be invasive for many young people. The discussion of the story ends with the instructor talking to students about lessening abortions by helping women with their “problems” in life, without also emphasizing the sacredness of all human life.
Especially in Unit 6, love is not clearly defined and can be confused with lust. The program resorts to qualitative descriptions like “beautiful love” and “true love,” which can mean virtually anything. It would be far better if the authors pointed students to C. S. Lewis or Dietrich von Hildebrand, 20th century authors who provide a clear understanding of this very misunderstood term.
It is because of the above concerns and others that The Meeting Point is not, in its current form, a helpful resource to Catholic families for forming students in Church teaching on sex and sexuality, and it needs significant revisions before serious consideration by Catholic parents, schools or parishes. We nevertheless look with hope to many fruitful efforts in the Church to respond to a hyper-sexualized culture that is often greatly at odds with Catholic morality and respect for the human person. The Cardinal Newman Society offers our own recently published resource for Catholic educators, Human Sexuality Policies for Catholic Schools, which recommends school policies that promote a faithful understanding of human sexuality, gender, marriage and chastity.
The Church brings to the modern world the guidance of the Holy Spirit and more than 2,000 years of reflection on the Gospel and on the human condition. Catholic youth deserve no less than to be taught these eternal truths.
New Sexual Revolution Requires Faithful, Parent-Centered Solutions
/in Blog, Student Formation Commentary, Sexuality and Gender Latest, PR Register Column/by Patrick ReillyCatholic families need the Church’s help facing what amounts to a second “sexual revolution” in America. To that end, there are many good efforts to understand and rebuff the radical “gender ideology” and false ideas about sexuality, marriage and the nature of the human person that are taking hold in American society.
But a recently released sex education program promoted by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, in its current form, is not what families need.
The Meeting Point: Course of Affective Sexual Education for Young People was developed by married couples in Spain and has enjoyed the support of the Council and the Spanish bishops. It’s being presented as a work in progress, “an opportunity to convene a large community of people to collaborate, to work, to exchange experiences and knowledge in this special field of education.” The Council is inviting feedback for what may be future improvements to the program or alternative options. Thus far, no directives to use this resource have been issued by the Vatican or the U.S. bishops.
Even so, there is danger that the program in its current form will be adopted by Catholic educators and families since it’s seen as having a stamp of approval “from the Vatican.” But this program is clearly not ready for Catholic schools or homes.
As The Cardinal Newman Society found in our review of the program, following upon similar criticisms, The Meeting Point “makes frequent use of sexually explicit and morally objectionable images, fails to clearly identify and explain Catholic doctrine from elemental sources including the Ten Commandments and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and compromises the innocence and integrity of young people under the rightful care of their parents.”
This is not what Catholic families need while facing today’s corrosive culture, which is only getting worse. According to one national survey, acceptance of premarital sexual activity spiked in the 1970s and changed little in the next two decades, only to suddenly jump again in the new millennium. Most Americans now believe that premarital sex is “not wrong at all.”
I was struck by another recent report indicating the rapid slide of morality even outside the U.S. The article published last month in The Guardian declared, “Welcome to the most promiscuous Olympics in history.” Apparently what occurred off-screen in the Olympic Village during the Summer Games required the distribution of 450,000 condoms and other bedroom aids, supplied with a wink and a nod by the International Olympic Committee.
Such evidence of a declining culture shows why families need to ensure a faithful Catholic education for their children, especially as public schools become increasingly dangerous to the soul. It’s also why Catholic parents should reject any sex education for their children that does not fully conform to Catholic standards and does not have their permission and approval.
Saint Pope John Paul II wrote in Familiaris Consortio:
In its 1995 publication The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality: Guidelines for Education within the Family, the Pontifical Council for the Family also recognized the essential role of parents in ensuring education that is sound and faithful. It instructed parents, as the primary educators of their children, to refuse to “tolerate immoral or inadequate formation being given to their children outside the home” (Sec. 44). Sadly, The Meeting Point fails the parent test.
There’s much to be admired in the work of the Pontifical Council for the Family, but The Meeting Point in its present form is a significant departure from the traditional approach to Catholic instruction about human sexuality. Even if its unique approach to affective, conversational learning deserves further study by the Council, the program is not ready for Catholic homes and schools. The times demand much better from Catholic education.
This article was originally published by The National Catholic Register.