Growing antisemitic tensions on university campuses, the ‘colorblindness’ trap, and elementary school illiteracy are further proof that the 250-year American experiment in publicly funded, non-sectarian education has failed.
As Archbishop John Ireland recognized a hundred years ago, there is no such thing as non-sectarian education. The Bible-based curriculums of 19th-century American public schools were gradually replaced by the 20th-century ‘religions’ of political ideology, leaving us with 21st-century immorality, ignorance, hyper-individualism, and civil disorder.
Education, by its very nature, is sectarian and therefore religious, because education forms the intellect and will, which are faculties of the soul. The human person is created by God with a desire to develop these faculties in accordance with truth. But because The Fall clouded our intellects and weakened our wills, we need divine revelation. Religion encompasses the practices and beliefs that respond to and integrate revealed truths. We can acquire knowledge through our senses and reason, but we need guides—teachers to instruct, train, and morally direct us.
The great historian Christopher Dawson observed that religion is what gives structure and impetus to society because religion provides the primary ideas of society. These ideas direct our culture, our traditions, our work, and form the way we think about ourselves and how we ought to use our environmental resources for the common good. Therefore, all education, especially the formation of youth, ought to be rooted in religious ideas, guided by parents, who have the primary authority to educate their children, and teachers, who assist parents in this supremely important duty.
Thus, parishes and schools work together as the cultural hub of family life in any society and the education they provide must be deeply rooted in religious instruction because religion informs us about how we fit into society, who we are, what we are meant to accomplish with our lives, and how we find true happiness. Society does well to empower, not penalize, parents to elect the sectarian education of their choice.
Education, however, is not merely religious. At the K-12 level, for example, education begins with the tools of learning—how to read, how to write, how to cypher—in addition to learning how to act, how to think clearly, and articulate ideas. As Dorothy Sayers explained in her famous essay “The Lost Tools of Learning”, primary and secondary education provide a framework for how to learn for the rest of one’s life.
Education can also include career training, and this is important for a healthy economy. This is also not a modern idea. Over 1600 years ago, Ambrose of Milan wrote that career training is especially important for young men who will be household providers. However, most career formation in today’s highly specialized economy takes place through licensing and on-the-job training, and it is not the primary subject matter of elementary education.
Civic education is also important if we are to function as responsible citizens in a democratic society. When we look at the history of education in the United States, we see that Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin all understood that education including literacy, virtue training, and civic education would best equip citizens to understand their rights and responsibilities, govern themselves, engage in public discourse, and make informed decisions in elections and governance. To that end, those three Founding Fathers advocated for tax-funded public education programs in their states (Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania). They argued that the resources of poor citizens often prohibited them from paying for even the most rudimentary education, so the poor needed taxpayer assistance for primary education. Note that Franklin and Jefferson were not ‘religious’ men, and each believed that civic and moral virtue could be taught without confessionalism.
On the other hand, some Founding Fathers (e.g. John Jay, Samuel Adams, John Witherspoon, and Patrick Henry) believed that religious (sectarian) education was essential for instilling the moral values and virtues necessary for the functioning of a free society. Their views influenced early debates on education policy among the Founders concerning the extent to which sectarian and non-sectarian education should be publicly supported.
Before the Civil War, the movement for universal, free, taxpayer-funded, non-sectarian, public elementary school education was strongest in New England. In 1837, the Secretary of Education of Massachusetts, Horace Mann, introduced the industrial Prussian model of ‘common schools,’ instituting a statewide system of professional teachers, licensed by ‘normal schools.’ These normal schools standardized the curriculum for all of Massachusetts with an emphasis on non-sectarian, age (not aptitude) based instruction, ‘social efficiency,’ civic virtue, and character building. By 1852, elementary school education was compulsory in Massachusetts and by 1930, every state in the Union required students to complete elementary school taught by licensed professionals.
However, during the 19th century, the so-called non-sectarian schools were just the ‘lowest common denomination’ (pun intended) Protestant schools, which enforced the King James Bible, for example, as the foundation for virtue and character training. When Archbishop John Hughes of New York and Bishop Kenrick of Philadelphia asked for the Catholic pupils in public schools to be able to use their own Bible in the early 1840s, they were told “No.” Catholics were then accused of hating the Bible, riots ensued, and Catholic churches were burned in 1844. In response, Archbishop Hughes advocated for Catholic schools that provided an integrated program of religious instruction with academic and civic education.
By the late 19th century, Archbishop John Ireland foresaw that the only way to eliminate confessionalism from our education system was to remove religion altogether, particularly Christianity, and that is exactly what we have done over the past century.
The 20th century witnessed a whole slew of bad educational ‘reforms’, from John Dewey to Laura Bush, which have further eradicated religion from public education and reduced it to a pragmatic, Bible-less, grade-based, industrial, ideological, standardized-test-driven, education system. All these reforms have tended to funnel control of education upward to the state and federal government, removing the family and local church communities further and further from control.
In the early 20th century, John Dewey redefined education when we wrote, “education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness, and the adjustment of individual activity based on this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction.” In short, Dewey reduced education to a propaganda tool, a tool to be wielded by the political and social elites in a top-down effort to form a universal ‘social consciousness’ among its citizens.
Our public education system has not only undermined religion in America, it has replaced religion with socio-political ideology. The public school system, which is protected by state licensing and entrenched bureaucracy, has ensured that our children will be subjected to every social, political, cultural fad imaginable—anything but Christianity—and the general trajectory of American ideology since the 1960s has been Marxist, ‘sexual liberation’ ideology.
For over half a century our education tax dollars have been funding an ideological indoctrination of our youth which, for the most part, rejects religion, especially Christianity, and promotes sexual licentiousness to the ongoing destruction of the American family. Our children are being taught to hate their Constitution, Christian religion, and traditional family life, and we wonder why we have so many social and economic problems. If we were honest, we would acknowledge that public schools are still sectarian in America, but the ‘religions’ are atheistic, Marxist, materialism, environmental pantheism, tech-utopian trans-humanism, and woke ideology, which preaches their values and principles.
Thankfully, in 1922 the U.S. Supreme Court in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, upheld that “a child is not a mere creature of the state”, which settled the dispute about whether private schools had the right to continue educating within the United States, and by the early 1990s, homeschooling had become officially recognized and regulated in all 50 states. In this regard, K-12 ‘school choice’ in America is far better than in most countries, but the current system penalizes parents who send their children to private schools.
74% of my state taxes and 56% of my property taxes are still funding a K-12 public education system that I have elected out of. It isn’t right that Jews and Christians should have to pay twice for education: both for the private sectarian education of their children and the anti-religious sectarian education of anti-religious families, or poor families who feel they have no choice.
Many politicians are now advocating for ‘parental choice’ programs as a policy solution to these problems. It seems we are waking up to the fact that ‘non-sectarian’ is very sectarian but in a way that is detrimental to our communities, because secular education is not neutral.
The data confirms that private schools provide a better preparation for family life than public schools, which is not surprising, but what is more, the data also confirms that private schools provide a better civic education than public schools, which nullifies the non-sectarian argument.
Between 1850 and 1950, many Catholic religious communities dedicated to education were founded in America. K-8 tuition was usually subsidized by parish funds, which in most cases made education free or very inexpensive for Catholic parishioners with school-age children. In 1965, 9 out of 10 American children enrolled in a private elementary school were attending Catholic schools.
Unfortunately, most of these religious communities disintegrated in the 1960s and 70s under the influence of the Sexual Revolution, but it would be wonderful to see similar efforts return. In fact, it is already happening. The future of a thriving America will be the fruit of religious revival and parent-elected, sectarian education.
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A well-received article on my part. Responsible Catholics ought never turn their children over to educators who are part of the government-operated educational system. Government promotes atheism and an ideology that worships man over God.
A few things I’d recommend, however. First, if your municipality has voting opportunities regarding local funding of the schools, vote “no” on every budget until a universal voucher system is enacted. All parents ought to be given a per child amount for the education of their children. Those who want to educate their children in Catholic schools could do so without being penalized and those who want their children to receive an education in secular, humanistic atheism can select government run schools.
The second recommendation I’d make is to every bishop. Make it policy that every Catholic family in his diocese can send their children to a Catholic elementary or high school free of charge. The only requirement would be that the family are registered members of a parish, attend Mass regilarly, participate in the parish’s community life and most importantly that they tithe. If this is done, then Catholic schools will not only be educating children but insuring a more meaningful expression of Catholic faith. Now, we have too many Catholic parents who send their children to Catholic schools while living like pagans. They don’t attend Mass, they don’t support the parish, and are simply sending their children to a private school with a cross affixed to the building- a blasphemy if ever there was one. The other added benefit to this arrangement is that parents get to reduce their taxes by the amount they tithe because that constitues a charitable donation.
The third thing I’d do is to provide space on parish or diocesan property for parents to run their own home school cooperative free of charge- again with the proviso that this is only open for families that are registered parishioners, attend Mass and who tithe.
Will parents & bishops consider these recommendations? You tell me.
Good thinking. Let’s do it!
Good thoughts, let’s do it!
Yes, thank you very much Deacon.
Our previous pastor had served in a parish with a stewardship program that allowed free tuition for every family who participated regardless of income level.
It can be done but unfortunately he found little interest in the parish we attended at the time. Parents weren’t concerned about the tithing or volunteering requirements. They balked at having to attend Mass weekly.
Pretty sad.
Deacon,
I love your recommendations. Having finished twenty years in Catholic Education, I would add an addendum to your suggestions:
Bishops must mandate that all teachers, coaches, administrators must take the oath of Fidelity to the traditional magisterium of the Catholic Church.
This would eliminate half of Catholic schools almost immediately as there would be nearly no one left.
Are there many bishops, pastors, principals who are willing to do this? I think we all know the answer…
Like Saint Bernadette once said, “ The only thing I fear is bad Catholics“. As an educator and homeschooling parent, the only only thing worse than a bad government school is a bad Catholic School.
For book length reasons, the public school and Catholic school systems in the west have been a monumental failure. Vouchers tithing, and tax credits will do nothing to resurrect Catholic education. The only solution is to correctly catechize the next generation of teachers and inoculate them with the Truth of Catholic tradition, morality and devotion.
Only then would I be willing to financially support Catholic Education..
Ave Maria!
Joseph—your solution only gives you excuse for not supporting any Catholic school ever. All the teachers in even the best school are never going to be perfect. No school is going to be perfect enough. And who exactly is going to catechize all those poor teachers? Any given parish’s catechism program is probably a far worse scandal for ignoring the quality of teachers, much less the content they teach. But I have volunteered my time at both for years since I became Catholic. Waiting for perfect helps no student therein.
Dear Deacon. I agree with most of the three. You say, “vote “no” on every budget until a universal voucher system is enacted”. Have you got a timeline? When religions rely on suspect politicians we lose!
Our Catholic church seems to be unable to stop the closing of our schools. Enrollment is down by 7%. My brother and I were alter servers and my parents wanted us to get a Catholic education. Unfortunately, we could not afford the tuition. Later I wanted my sons to attend John Coleman High School. That year Coleman closed.
CWR Russell Shaw: “For the once mighty Catholic school system is now in a state of decline, with no end in sight”.
Catholic.org website: “Catholic schools, and the Church are going extinct in America, and the blame is found within. According to the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA), there are just about 6,000 Catholic schools left in America. That’s a shocking decline of over 50 percent”. They offer reasns…
Cost: Catholic education costs around $4,800 per year for elementary and $10,000 per year for high school. How many people have that kind of money? Not enough.
I feel that a significant cost is also that of lay teachers. There are fewer cleric teachers, Jesuits, Nuns, monks.
Scandal: The shocking tolerance for sex abuse has driven many people away from the Church, and their students out of the schools.
https://www.catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=85303
Notice the emphasis on money! I grew up in a parish that didn’t have a Catholic school like most in small towns. We didn’t even have our own priest. It was still classed as a missionary parish even it though the church was built in 1845. And is still in use. We attended public schools and were not taught any of the weird stuff the author claims. Neither were my children or grand children. The Church has always had the opportunity to teach catechism to us attending public school . It actually neglected to do that while teaching non religious things to wealthier people. I notice every Sunday that there are very few students from the adjacent parish school are at mass. Nor do I see any of the college age graduates there,even during the summer. Looks to me that the great religion education system is a great failure. Even with public support. Catholics need to get an honest knowledge of their own schools as well as of the public system. You are victims of your own propaganda and ignorance.
Christopher, the failure of US religious education is more than obvious, as you have noted. But at the technical level, say math, engineering, etc. US education is just fantastic. Japan and Korea have very good systems too, but the rest of the world is far behind. Remember that the computer system you used to type your article was based on the success of the US education system.
An excellent essay. However, one note: Archbishop John Ireland was an adamant opponent of the Catholic school system; he was an assimilationist, who believed Catholics ought to be blend in with the rest of American society as much as possible, a mindset Leo XIII condemned as the heresy of Americanism.
Thanks Fr. Stravinskas. I caught that as well.
Thank you for your comments on Archbishop Ireland. There is a long history there. As a Greek Catholic, I am not a fan of Ireland, the “founder of the OCA” (see https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2016/05/18/fr-alexis-toth-bishop-john-ireland-and-the-grace-of-reconciliation/). Rachael Lu also wrote an interesting article on Ireland’s educational policy attempts. I am not an American historian, but her February 2024 essay seems well researched (see https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/01/17/john-ireland-catholic-schools-education-246946). To be clear, I am not advocating for school choice as a policy solution to the problems I lay out in the article. I believe in limited government and private education. As many have commented below, strings are always attached to public funding. Publicly funded education is the “tar baby” that is crippling Catholic parents and the Church in America. School choice may seem like a short term win, but it will likely end in disaster with more state encroachments on education and the church. I believe American are very generous and that private philanthropy is more than sufficient to address the problem of poor families not being able to pay for Catholic education–especially if we could eliminate state tax funding for education so that parents and grandparents are not paying double for education. We also need to do away with state licensing for teachers. It is not within the realm of the state to train teachers and dictate curriculum.
By the grace of God, I was educated in Catholic schools from kindergarten through university.
We tried to do the same with our six children. It did not work out. Without the good sisters in the classrooms, who answer to a higher calling, the Catholic education system is now much too
expensive for the working class family. So, we homeschooled.
More V2 collateral damage. Bet on it.
Good article. As much as possible we should lobby for tax credits, autonomy and religious freedom in all of our Church programs. We must be free to educate our children to become: firstly, believers inChrist and secondly, contributing citizens to the greater common good. In this fast evolving “open and accepting “ amoral society we must demand to live out our moral convictions in peace without harassment. They preach tolerance and acceptance and we must see to it that they practice it towards minority groups like us. We can’t fool ourselves into thinking that we can ever convert many of them, but we must continue trying.
This article is so well written. Thank you. Our culture would ask you why you hate teachers. Thinking Catholics would agree with everything you’ve said. Deacon Peitler has great solutions. Unfortunately, they will never be followed. The Bishops aren’e ever going to say anything against the culture or its indoctrination factories. Because no one said anything for decades, it’s too late now. We couldn’t keep our republic and we aren’t sure how to keep our Catholic culture.
Public schools here in Ontario used to be de facto Protestant. Today, the religion they teach is implicitly (when it’s not explicitly) secular humanism.
There is no such thing as neutrality in education (or morality either).
Most public school systems were pretty good in the 1950’s,before they were “reformed.”
Some public schools were still decent in the 1960s. I attended a one room schoolhouse during that period. It was great.
My older siblings did the same until the forced consolidation of the schools into one. Promises of cheaper and better have never been realized.
My uncle attended through the 8th grade until they went into town for the Catholic high school and said if you were ever going to learn something you would in the one room because by the 8th grade you had heard every lesson recited so many times.
Exactly. And older students teaching younger ones is a proven way of reinforcing learning.
Our teacher couldn’t teach 8 grade levels at once for certain subjects so she’d ask the older students to help out with the lower grades. Homeschooling works like that too.
The US public education system would be the best in the world, ONLY if schools stick to teaching math, science, language grammar/composition, arts, logic (just as successful Asian, European nations do) WITHOUT injecting atheistic morality (racial hatred, gender ideology). US public school system has transformed into the biggest RELIGIOUS school system in the world – the demonic religion of immorality. It has become like the indoctrination schools during early days of communist takeover of Russia and China.
US school system prohibited teaching of religions in order to replace them with a godless religion.
“School choice” sells out to government strings both visible and invisible. Government schools should be comparable to soup kitchens, reserved only for the needy. A way to do this is to means test the public School to eliminate the wealthy double incomes who are just looking for free babysitting. Then refund the excess money *to the taxpayer*, rather than diverting it to a piper paying “school choice” system which will bloat with strings.
Those who can, homeschool. Without strings.
And here’s the elephant in the room about Pierce vs Society Sisters and “school choice”. PVSS affirmed parental rights but only in a world before the frankentube made the child the “creature of the state” and granted his procurers, Adam and Steve, the right to call themselves parents.
All of this Trumpkin bloviating about “parental rights” could greenlight the subsidy of Adam and Steve sending their procured child to Harvey Milk Charter School. And President Warp Speed (school choice hero!) is going to *mandate* ivf coverage. Hello Brave New World! Is *that* what we want? School Choice sends my taxpayer bucks into this eugenics maelstrom.
No, Catholics must *resist* the siren pied-piper calls of “school choice” and sacrifice to homeschool our kids (the main cost is one income, but work-at-home now helps to mitigate). Let the *Church* subsidize directly, via coops, and via local economic networks, and let the priests preach Humanae Vitae and support lifelong marriage to facilitate this necessary division of labor.
This author writes for Acton Institute, and the great Fr Robert Sirico of Acton was key in forming one of the best Catholic AND Classical schools in the country: Sacred Heart Academy in Grand Rapids. That parish’s faith formation staff there have done stellar work integrating the community into the school, and the school into community as well. Classical education is the biggest thing in education right now. Their schools are thriving. Unfortunately many Protestant churches are also forming them as well with deep pockets. In our diocese, the former school Superintendent was promoting Common Core curriculum. That evil takes a long time to remove.