With 'ACE,' Catholic ed has a good thing going
by Michael Sean Winters | Nov. 8, 2013
A few years back, Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson faced the grim prospect of closing three under-performing and financially unsustainable schools, one of which served one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. One school, St. John the Evangelist, had consistently low test scores, with only 15% of students reading at grade level. There were many empty chairs at the school which only had 100 students enrolled. The physical plant was in gross disrepair and there was no money to fix it. In the long catalogue of Catholic school closures, St. John the Evangelist looked like it was about to become one more data point in the story of decline.
But, instead of accepting this grim verdict, +Kicanas called Father Timothy Scully, CSC, who runs the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) and asked for help. ACE began what Scully calls “the most exciting thing we’re involved in,” and, in short order, produced “a miracle.” After working out a new governance model with the bishop, the three Tucson schools became “ACE Academies” with Notre Dame’s program investing time, guidance and Catholic identity into the schools. The results were not long in coming. Today, 52% of the students at St. John the Evangelist are reading at grade level and, among second graders, that number has risen to 92%. Enrollment shot up, going from one hundred students to 280 students. There is now a waiting list. Fr. Scully contacted a donor at Notre Dame who owns a successful construction company. “I said to him, ‘Rather than writing a check, can you rebuild the school?” The donor agreed to do so.
Notre Dame also has two ACE academies in Tampa. “Bishops Kicanas and Lynch are really thoughtful guys,” Scully told me. “They understand that desperate times call for desperate measures. Working with these bishops has been a dream.” Every state is different in terms of laws governing private-public partnerships in education, which Scully, who is deeply committed to school choice efforts, says are essential. “There isn’t enough private money in the world to sustain what we are trying to do in inner city schools.”
Fr. Scully founded ACE in 1993 to place the resources of Catholic Higher Education at the service of Catholic elementary and secondary schools. The programs goals have not changed: To sustain, strengthen and transform Catholic schools. But, the initiative has developed in manifold ways. The ACE Service through Teaching program has over 1,300 alumni, of whom 75% are still working in education. The program helps form the next generation of Catholic educators, awarding them an M. Ed. Degree while living in small faith communities completing a two-year curriculum. ACE’s “English as a New Language” program trains teachers to teach English and is currently at work in Chile and Puerto Rico. ACE is also deeply involved with the Congregation of the Holy Cross’s pastoral work in Haiti, helping create an educational infrastructure in that most poverty-stricken country in the hemisphere. The Renewing Identity, Strengthening Evangelization program at ACE helps schools enhance their Catholic identity and participate in the evangelizing mission of the Church. The list of ACE activities goes on, and it shows no signs of diminishing, at least not as long as Fr. Scully has breath in his body.
http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/ace-catholic-ed-has-good-thing-going